The World's Shortest Stories of Danny Phantom
by hammy ham ham
Summary: If you had but one minute, one ounce of memory, what would you remember? Every life has it's own story, and every story has it's gravest and grandest moments. A journey. Remember, a moment can hold a lifetime. How many lifetimes are held in these pages?
1. Part 1

Okay, really, I have no clue what a drabble is. Please, do me a favor and tell me.

Every day I think up little stories in math class, and write them down. These are those stories. A majority will be angst and romance, mostly because other genres I am using in other stories. A summary will be at the start, at the end of most will be a song lyric or other quote. I strive to make them _exactly_ one page long each, although a few are off.

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-In The Blink of an Eye-

-Romance/Angst-

-Danny's POV-

-In Danny's final moments, his thoughts run astray to events in his life-

Time is such a fickle thing. When you need to get something done, it slips right through your fingers. When you have nothing to do, it stands stock still.

In this moment, my last moment, time is racing beneath my fingers. I know it coming, the great force to end it all. What's worse, I am powerless to stop it. I lay here, watching the sun go by as I have a million times, and now, for the last time. The last time I will see those beautiful rays, dancing along the dull gray I'm surrounded in.

It is not until now I fully realize what they mean when they say be thankful for what you have. There are so many things we have in life we take for granted. The song of a bird, the color of a flower-simple things you never think of in a day. The things that make life worth living.

Now I wish I had taken the time to think of of them. There are so many beautiful things I've seen and done I never took the time to remember... Especially her, my dear Sam.

I wish with all my heart that I could tell her that I do love her. I denied it for years, but now I know and I can't help but think of all the things we missed out on. The things we could have done, the time we wasted. All lost to the sands of time, my luck finally run out on me. My thoughts wander to my other loved ones, my family and Tuck.

I think of them, ignorant of what is to come. They believe I am having a vacation. The bitter irony. They will never know that their end is fast approaching, and that is good, they should be able to end their lives with a happy note. Ignorance is truly bliss. Going through their day, like the billions of others, myself the sole witness of the destruction just outside my grasp.

I look through the window at the bleak white expanse of the clouds around the bomber. I twist and fight against the glowing bonds holding me prisoner, to look at the device next to me, ticking with a wicked rhythm. I observe the blinking red light on the side, counting down slowly to the demise of everything and everything I hold dear, to their deaths.

Four minutes and thirty four seconds until the bomb.

_How can the light that burns so brightly suddenly burn so pale, Bright Eyes..._

_(Bright Eyes)_

_**----------------------------------------**_

-Fly in the Freedom-

-General-

-Danny's POV-

-Danny flies and thinks about his life before being able to, and what it means to him-

I'm flying, flying, _flying away._ Through the sky I twirl. My fingers graze the tips of clouds, little ice crystals fringing on my silver glove. I smile, flicking off the miniature ice sickles with a twist of my wrist, back into the white mist.

I drop down, and see Amity Park once again become visible. The people I protect every day, the people who finally recognized me for the good I strive to achieve. I lower until I can make out the tiny figures walking along the streets, several seeing me and waving.

I wave back happily, slowing down so they can recognize the gesture before speeding back up and zooming through the airways, the wind whipping at my snowy white locks.

I turn invisible and fly through the streets, hugging corners and doing as many close calls as I can. If there's one thing I can't live with out now, it's flying. It is the very essence of freedom, to be unbound by gravity. I just peels off all my worries and doubts like nothing else can. It's just so... liberating. No thoughts, no worries, just the sensation of open air.

The air licks at my arms, pushing on me from all sides and urging me forward, into the wild yonder and the azure afternoon sky that welcomes me to become part of it.

I loop in the air, feeling the adrenaline pump through my veins. Not being able to fly is a distant memory now, I can barely recall being Earth bound. I think that, if everyone could fly, there would be a lot less evil in the world. It's just so calming, it's almost addictive.

I guess, in a way, I am addicted to it. I fly to relieve my worry, I fly to exorcise my anger, I fly simply for the sake of flying. Hardly a day goes by I haven't been airborne at some point or another, and really, I'm fine with that. Most of the time I fly to avoid a ghost, but I still enjoy it to the fullest. There's nothing quite like it, like swimming without water.

I look down and see my own house making itself known on the horizon, a behemoth if there ever was one. I turn intangible and fly into my room, transforming back into my human self, my hair now black as night and eyes the same azure as the world I just left.

I look at the table accursedly, I guess I'd better start that homework. Flying is great, but it makes a lousy excuse.

_I want to fly High, so I can reach the highest of all the heavens..._

_(Believe in Myself)_

_**----------------------------------------**_

-Cherry Blossoms-

-Romance (fluff)-

-Danny's POV-

It's another Spring Day. The birds are chirping, the wind is whispering, flowers are blooming. Another beautiful Spring day.

I am sitting on a the branch of a Cherry tree, the thousands of miniature beauties decorating it's twisting branches hiding me from the world, invisible to the world.

I gaze longingly at the figure below me, my dear, dear Sam. I'll admit it, everybody's right- I love Sam and know it. I'm just scared that she doesn't love me back. It would hurt worse than any battle wound. I don't think I could ever be recover, ever be happy again.

I have good reason to fear, as I know just how twisted I can become. I never want to become that, so, I hide my feelings until I get a sign. If that sign never comes, I'll wait still. Sam is the only one I've ever truly loved. Sure I had little crushes on Paulina and Valerie, but they weren't as... real. Not as full and expansive, like shadows of what I feel for Sam. She's my lifeline, my light in the dark, my blanket in the cold, my everything.

She is sitting there silently, the only movement the wind gently brushing her cheek or the occasional turning of a page in the book she is reading. A silent angel is all I see when I watch her down there, unaware of the spell she casts on my longing heart.

I'm content to watch her for the rest of eternity, loving her from afar. Time seems to stand still as we sit there, unaware of the rest of the world. Sam enveloped in the worlds of her books, and myself captured by her aura.

I smile as the wind tussles her hair, whipping it astray. She looks adorable like that, so wild and free, and yet beautiful and elegant. Like the crane not yet preened after experiencing the joy of flight, or the wolf atop a mountain, crying into to night.

She stands to leave the bench, lifting her backpack gingerly and filling it with assorted this and that. She steps with an aura of mystery, one that make her so easy to love. Unpredictable in every sense of the word, and yet, with a certain rhythm to her life.

I shake my head and transform into my ghost form before flying away, the cherry blossoms twirling along with me. As I leave, one delicately lands on her head. She inspects it and looks up, seeing me zip off into the horizon. She smiles, placing it behind her ear and continuing home, her prayers answered by the small treasure from above.

_Every time I see your Face, it reminds me of the places we used to go..._

_(Photograph)_

_**----------------------------------------**_

-Of Souls-

-romance/angst/tragedy/poetry-

-DANNY'S POV-

-Some thoughts of Danny in his immortality-

I wish to move on. As Angel or devil, never to be known, but still, I wish. The lost soul.

Everyone else has passed on to realms beyond, to the father's hands. The saved souls.

Killed by _him_, the heartless destroyer, the one who claimed their lives. The mirrored soul.

He was supposed to be stopped by the all knowing and all seeing one, The wisest soul.

Yet he fled and ended everything in the world, destroying them all. The innocent souls.

He left me here to rot in memory, in the way he killed her, my Sam. The cherished soul.

Bloodcurdling acts, acts beyond the realm of what even Vlad would do. The jealous soul.

His darkness took over, and killed all that was left of Danny Fenton. The emotional soul.

I never knew what fate befell him. Vlad's good never told me of it. The enlightened soul.

Second chances-gifts, but none to me. I wish to ask my sister of them. The helpful soul.

She protected me, aided me, and held my secrets from my dear parents. The caring souls.

They may have tried to kill me, but out of love, unlike other ghosts. The captured souls.

After centuries of fighting they have left me here, alone. I never saw her, the created soul.

A clone of myself. I wonder of her often. She is probably gone, like Val, the tricked soul.

I never told. If I did, maybe things would be different for her, for them. The wanted souls.

Never will their faces tarnish, I also gained perfect memory from him. The grand soul.

The one who made all this happen, in vain of the efforts of his son. The sacrificed soul.

They are gone to oblivion, like the millions of others who have died. The many souls.

How I wish to join them. Alas, I am what I am, forever. The Lost Soul. Danny Phantom.

_**----------------------------------------**_

-Faults-

-Drama/Angst-

-Danny's POV-

-Danny discovers who's really at fault for his evil future.-

As I sit in my chair, looking at the medallion Clockwork entrusted to me, I can't help but wonder of just why I have it.

It came from stopping Dan, my evil self. His tale is one of sorrow, crushed by his own emotions into something barely recognizable as a creature that was, at some point, human. He was caused by the explosion, the explosion that killed them all.

The explosion was caused by my own foolishness. I exploded a small packet of condiments while fighting a ghost, which heated up the cookers to which my family would be glued when the explosion come. The ghost- her name was Box Lunch- came to me to distract me from the test, in an effort to stop my broken self, when she was truly the cause of it all. It's her fault all of it happened, her fault for bringing me to the stupid Nasty Burger. Box Lunch was insane, Box Lunch was annoying, Box Lunch was-

Box lunch was... sent by Clockwork. How did I miss that, she was sent by Clockwork. Clockwork sent her, who then attacked me, which heated the Nasty Burger, which exploded, which killed everybody, which destroyed my will to live, which spawned _him._ It was all because of... _Clockwork._

He was the one who made it all happen. The one who made me evil. The one who... who saved me in the end. My savior was my destroyer, how fitting for my story. Parents trying to protect me from myself, crushing on the girl who wants my head on a silver platter, that's life. My life, anyway. I remember, Sam said that. Think of it later, Clockwork first.

I need to talk with him over this, he was the one who set all of this in motion, the one who created that devastating broken image of my future. He must know all of this would happen, all of it. He chose to put me through this, to clean up his mistake. Here I thought of him as a mentor. I should tell my friends of this, after confronting the Time Master who damned me to this fear of my shadow.

I barge in, eyes ignited in rage, as I silently search the home of my once thought savior and now known destroyer. I fly through the many gears, before gazing upon the mirror that had once revealed what he had spawned of my life. He'd better have a damn good excuse for this. I snarl as the figure becomes known, energy pooling in my hands."Oh Clockwork, we have some business to attend to..."

_What you see, you can not Believe, but when we rise you'll know..._

_(Almost Dead)_

**----------------------------------------**

-her daughter, his daughter, my daughter-

-angst-

-3rd Person's POV-

-a dark secret is revealed about Sam's and Danny's lineage-

"We should tell her, it's a wonder she hasn't found out yet..." a middle aged red haired woman trailed off, looking to her spouse, a blond man with a rather angular face.

"I know dear, but it's for her own good. We can't let her now, those Fentons would take her away the minute they found out. I still don't know why we chose them, of all people..." the man continued, looking at a picture of his daughter sadly.

"We did it because they were bright. They may be morons now, but they used to be brilliant, and we wanted her to have the absolute best chances. I just wish she'd turned out better, they're why she's so... freakish... Those damn genetics..." the woman continued.

"She may be a Manson according to all of the medical records, but she can't escape her fate. No matter what we do she just won't bend, it's like some part of her knows we're not her real parents. I don't know how or why, but she always hangs around with those Fentons. You don't suppose she knows...?" he asked, face holding surprise at the revelation.

"I don't think so, otherwise she'd have told us by now. I just hate how it's only a simple DNA test away the she isn't a Manson, she's a Fenton. They have more than the equipment, it's only a matter of time before the secret spills." she answered.

"Dear, do you remember what we did to that poor woman and her children? I can barely recall the reasoning behind such sin any more. It's all for naught, and we'd better hope to high heck she never hears us taking about it, otherwise she'd hightail it to their place before the day was out." he asked, eyes crossed in concentration.

"I remember. We caught wind Maddie was pregnant and hired a hit man to have her to be knocked and kidnapped. She was having twins, and we took one for me. You must remember I'm barren, George, and we need somebody to carry on our legacy. I can only cringe at what's going on between her and that boy though, if they ever find out they'll, they might do something drastic. I can't have their blood on my hands..." she paused, looking downward in shame.

"If they ever fall in love and so much as attempt anything serious then we'll just have to separate them. No child of mine, even one who isn't my own flesh and blood, will commit such sin. We must never let her know. Sam Manson will never know she is Danny Fenton's twin, never. It's for her own good."

**-----------------------------------------**

-The reaper-

-horror/angst-

-Danny's POV-

-Danny's halfa soul gives him a rather unwelcome job come the death of his human half-

This is my life. Well, ex-life. I just had to be the smart one and get myself killed by Val. Now that my human half bit it, I'm still half ghost. Except now the second half is... whatever comes next. Of course, at fate would have it, this gives me a rather strange job.

I never wanted this immortal fate, trapped in the coils of the time line, watching people live out their lives, only to be snatched away by my own hands. Why did they have to assign halfas the duty of reaper? If I was half demon I would have been a gremlin. If I were half vampire I'd be somebody's conscious. No, I get to be the reaper and kill people.

Isn't that just a kicker? Danny Phantom, savior of the world several times over, turns out to be the grim reaper. All the people I spent _years_ saving I am now forced to snuff out with one strike of my scythe. Sure I get all sorts of inter-dimensional goodies, but that doesn't really make up for the fact I swipe people's heads off for work. At least I still look like Danny Phantom, not like that last guy. You know, the one with the black robe? The guys upstairs didn't exactly want a hippy grim ripper, it sort of lost the mystique.

I feel a sting and look at my arm, a white skull showing. Show time. I thrust my scythe out, ripping reality a new one. I jump through to the home of whomever I'm knocking off today. Pretty normal. Pictures of kids on the walls, little doilies... Typical grandma place.

I feel an insistent tug toward a hall to the left, and follow it to the room of the dieing person. It's an elderly woman, dark and wrinkled like a prune. However, she has the energy to look up and see me smirking down at her. She gasps, mouthing '_you, phantom!'_

My eyes blink, realization dawning. Well, if this isn't the greatest plot twist to end _her_ life. It somehow seemed so fitting, a final chapter to our dismal tale of woe. "Ah, you remember me? And here you thought I was gone. If this isn't karma I'll eat my scythe. You see, when you killed me, I turned into the grim reaper. Now I kill you. Irony."

Her mouth opened in a wordless scream, eyes bulging as my words became clear, my scythe held at the ready for what was to come. She sent me into this pathetic excuse for an existence with those damn guns, and now I'll return the favor. All her fault, hers and Vlad's, but his halves were separated and killed _decades_ ago. Three guesses who did it.

My scythe is raised high, and my voice rolls out like thunder, ringing in a tone that somehow seems horrifically appropriate. "Hello Valerie. And Goodbye." _Slash_

_'deep down, we all bleed red and black'_

**----------------------------------------**

-True Purpose-

-angst-

-Ember's POV-

-Why Ember's a ghost and what her 'unfinished business' is-

I lie alone in my bed, my blue flame flickering around my head. Things have been getting worse. That dipstick's still beating me, and I still haven't been able to get him together with that goth chick. Fate's just so damn cruel to the artists.

I still remember when I died and my unfinished business was told to me. At first, I couldn't believe it. Depending on another person was not something I'd do. Ever. and yet, there it was in scarlet ink, and here I am trying to move on and be done with it.

Why does that dipstick have to be so stubborn about it? Why won't he just admit it and let me die, let me out of this hellhole? No, I can't blame him, he doesn't know. It would just make this so much easier if I could tell. Alas, as Walker puts it, 'that's against the rules.'

I thought for sure that love song I put on those two on top of that building would have done it, but that dark girl just had to break the spell by kissing that damn jock. I swear, if they die before they make up and I end up trapped here forever, I'll kick his ass for all eternity. I hate depending on his choices and feelings. I don't rely on anyone. It's not me.

I can't rely on anyone. I learned that I can't when that jerk I called a boyfriend conveniently forgot to stamp out that cigarette that lit the stage on fire, and then found my 'lost will' that gave him all my earnings. Farewell concert got a new meaning that day.

Of course, now he's off with that kitty chick. Him and that motorcycle, how she stands it is beyond me. Maybe that's why I hate that dipstick so much. Everybody else has love issues. Him, as soon as he finally coughs up the courage to tell that goth he loves her then they'll have everything set out straight. They're destined for each other, heck, when Spectra kidnapped them into that hospital I found out their names are freakin' spelled on the other's heart, in size 12 Times New Roman font.

I sigh, I might as well at least try to make those two fess up again. It's late in their human world, maybe a midnight sonata will do _something._ Humans, for reasons unknown, put a a lot of faith in dreams, and a good love song can usually make their imaginations stir.

As I grab my guitar and float into the green abyss, that one line flashes before me. Those damn words still ring in my mind... _Play at Danny Fenton and Sam Manson's first date._

_'It's so easy to fall in love, it's so easy to fall in love. People tell me love's for fools...'_

_(It's So Easy to Fall in Love)_

_--------_

_-_The Phantom IM!-

-romance-

-Danny's POV-

-Danny answers some fanmail and finds a rather odd message-

I sat down exasperatedly as I turned toward the computer, two images appearing. Ever since I put up an email for Phantom the fan mail has been awful, however, it was light today... Every day I get threats, hyper fans, and worst of all, _fangirls. _This first message said:

OMG! YUR SO COL! U ROQ!  P ) 4EVR!

Ah yes, that little icon that popped up on a message board somewhere and has since flooded my email box. I reply a generic thank you before turning to the next one, labeled simply; To DP. I curiously open the message, which looks a lot neater and more worked on than most. At least it wasn't Paulina gushing of her love for me again, that got so damn annoying...

_I remember when we first met,it was kindergarten, you helped me up when Dash hit me._

_L ong gone are such carefree times, where all we had to worry about was nap time._

_O ther things have taken over. Feelings I can't describe or accept. It's so hard to watch._

_V alerie, Paulina, it hurts so much to see you run off with them, ignoring me._

_E very time people call us lovebirds, we deny it. I just hate lying about these feelings._

_Y ou may not love me, but I can't keep it quiet. I just can't keep it under wraps longer._

_O h how I wish I could yell it to the heavens, but I just can't. It would make things odd._

_U nderstand, please, that I want this friendship to last, even though I love you._

_-Sam._

Danny did a double take, to be sure. Sam loved him? His heart skipped a beat. She loved him. She loved him! How could he have missed it, and with all the clueless comments?

He nearly yanked the mouse out of the computer as replied:

_I can't believe I was such a fool not to notice the signs, it seems so obvious now._

_L ost among a see of precognitive decisions, it never crossed my mind._

_O ur friendship will survive through this, because the feelings are more than mutual._

_V irtual euphoria is running through my veins as I type, I can barely think straight_

_E very day we loved each other from afar, how stupid have we been, Sam?_

_Y ou and me, I guess everybody's right, we belong together through and through._

_O utside, inside, left, right, up, down, it all reads the same, Sammy;_

_U nder our denial we have yearned for each other. You love me, and I love you._

_-Danny_

_------_


	2. Part 2

I just realized how many of those are 'Oh Henry' stories, one that end with a twist. Odd.

------

-What is good?-

-angst-

-?'s POV-

It's over. It's finally, finally over. He's gone. He's dead. At my hands.

As I look above the ruin, above the shattered stone, I can't help but wonder why I did it. What possessed me to do it. Am I really this hero that everybody claims me to be, that my friends and loved ones tell me I am? Could somebody who mercilessly killed be a hero? Maybe, maybe I'm not a hero after all. Maybe I'm something else. Heroes don't kill people. I killed, I'm no hero. I have never been one, heroes never go that far.

Even if he did threaten my friends, my family, does that really excuse murder? Heroes don't murder. I have murdered. I am a murderer. Murderers are evil people. Does that mean I'm evil? I guess it does. Have I been that blind? I have evil in me, I know that. I have proved that. But am I really evil, evil enough to murder- no, slaughter someone?

As I think of the bloodshed I have caused, I can't see how I'm not. I've always had evil in me, but is that evil taking over? Could it be changing me, making me into something sinister? Maybe. Evil clouded _him, _and turned him into something wicked. I've heard that he was a great person before that, friendly and caring. Look where he is now.

He could have done so much more good, if only, if only. Fate is cruel that way, the good either die young or turn evil in some elaborate plot. That's the way my life, his life, many lives have been. You just can't trust people, and now I know-I can't even trust myself.

Will I become him? Will this evil, this ghost take over and muddle my conscious to the point I can't tell right from wrong? Will I come within a moment's breadth of destroying everyone whom I ever connected with, the people who accepted me and shielded me?

Maybe they can't see the evil in me, just like how I couldn't. They don't want to see it, they refuse to see it. They can't bare the thought that their friend is a monster deep inside, something to be feared and eradicated. But it's the truth, and it runs through my veins. There is no abolishing, or exorcising, the fact I am evil. _Still... _

As I look down on the modest grave, a single tear falls from my right eye, running down the deceptively calm writing that holds so many secrets, that holds the name of my late father, that announces the presence of the soul I disposed of so heartlessly. Like he did.

_:Danny Fenton:_

_:1990-2036:_

_:Beloved friend:_

_:Cherished father:_

_:A Lost Soul:_

-------

-The Low Road _(I might leave little notes here. Keep in mind this was made months ago)_

-angst-

-Danny's POV-

Pain. It is all I feel. All I know any more. My friends, my family, anyone who I ever cared about, snuffed out like a candle. All because I wasn't good enough. I wasn't fast enough. I wasn't strong enough. If I had gotten there one moment sooner they'd be still be here. I have to keep on telling myself they're gone, because that's what they are. They passed on. They didn't turn into ghosts, they just died. Because I failed them.

I have nobody. I am nobody. I am less than nobody. I am _nothing. _I don't deserve happiness. I don't deserve joy; because, when you get down to the line, they all died, they suffered, they are gone because I failed them. Every time I see one of their pictures, hear something they once said, I am reminded of all the wonderful things that could have been, if only. It is my fault, in its entirety. There is no person to blame except myself.

Every night, I relive that awful day. When everything was gone. I hear their screams, see the fear in their eyes. I run with all my might, but I can never make it. I watch them go, the fiery abyss roasting them alive, the bright light and deafening boom joining their end.

I yell and scream in my sleep, trapped in the endless circle of misery I built around myself. Deep, strong walls pent me up, a lamb thrown to the lion of my conscious. I deserve all this, because of what I thought I could be. I prided myself a hero. Hah. some hero. I couldn't save my own family from condiments.

...and then, above all else, I think of Sam. My dearly beloved Sam. I never knew it, but she was my angel. My silver lining. The light at the end of the tunnel of every day. However, because I failed to reach that light one too many times, it was cast away from myself, from the world, from my unworthiness of her.

Why such an angel put up with such a thing as myself is unknown. However, I imagine it was ignorance. Ignorance of what I would cause, ignorance of my failings, ignorance of the crying dog I was under these cursed powers. Powers that robbed me of my family, my friends, my love, my very soul. and yet, I took them willfully, never risking destroying them for risk of myself. I was a coward. I am a coward. A selfish swine who, because they didn't chance themselves, lost the lives of everyone near them.

I wish it would all go away. That the pain would just stop. These emotions, my strength, they are all pounding me away, bit by bit by bit. These feelings are like swordsmen, slashing at my heart and mind whenever I think of what I have cost the world.

I wish I had died that day in the Fenton portal, and left them all right then. Then they would all be living their lives, with out me being there to destroy their happiness. I wish I could lose my ties to my past life, my human side, before I lose what little I have left.

I'll have to ask Vlad if such a thing is possible.

_------_

-He what?- (_Based off a true story (yes, this actually happened to me))_

-humor/romance-

-Sam POV-

Sam is bored checking through her email. Danny and Tucker rarely used it- IMing is so much faster. Still, she went through it every day in case they sent something. It was full of spam. Advertisements for on line dating sites, medicine samples, all of that good crap.

She grumbled as she deleted a 'Is your love life losing it's fire?' message without so much as glimpsing at it. She didn't _have _a love life to lose. Danny, while still, fortunately, single, still didn't show signs of liking her. She sighed, he'd never return her feelings.

Her eyebrows raised at a message that was from a private address. It wasn't very descriptive (cooldude04), but it didn't look like an advertisement. She opened it, and spit out the soda she was drinking as the image of a crusty old hobo appeared, and the text came up. One thought pounded through her mind;

_WHAT._

_**THE.**_

_**HELL!**_

_Hello beautiful. You don't know me, but I know you, I love you. Run away to Arizona with me! Look near the Silver Flats Oil rig for the guy with one eye missing his front teeth, that's yours truly! We can have lots of little Bobs running around!-Bobby, One cool dude._

Her eye twitched at the message. Who in the world! She quickly put the name on her ignore list, eye still twitching intermittently. That was disturbing on the very base of her being. She wouldn't be surprised if it had permanently scarred her for life. That was just. so. wrong. As her parents put it, 'That was objectionable, immoral, and obnoxious.'

She shook her head and continued to the next message, something with a lower chance of making her take up her parent's offer of getting her a private therapist. A nice, safe advertisement for art supplies. She sighed as she returned to her thoughts about Danny, and the myriad of things he'd do to whomever sent that unholy message. It made her laugh. Pictures of punches and kicks and ectoblasts shot up someone's rear filled her mind as she continued down the ever growing list of spam, messages she was now glad to have, as opposed to that gruesome image of a hillbilly gone wrong.

Unbeknown to her, outside her room, her best friends were trying to suppress their chuckles. Danny was forced to hold Tucker up with one arm, the other covering his mouth to stop the laughter. Tucker was in a similar fit with one hand over his mouth, the other emailing to his cousin from the West, Rich Foley; Alias Bob, or One Cool Dude.

-------

-Repeat _(one of the few that ties in with another one shot, namely "The Reaper")-_

-Angst-

-Clockwork's POV-

I sigh as I watch time flow through my little mirror screen. People being born, growing up, and dieing. It just seems so monotonous. I know, as I have since the very beginning, that everything goes through this process. Some die earlier on than others, but they all go to one of three fates. When they die, they either go to Heaven, Hell, or they come to the Ghost Zone, where they must finish their business before going to one of the former two.

That is, until Danny Phantom was born. Yes, there is also Vlad Plasmius, but he is destined to lose his ghost half a moment's breadth before his halves' mutual deaths at the young halfa's hands. No, Danny Phantom is different; he has and will tangle with death more times than any former or prior could ever hope. He is also, unfortunately, immortal.

I can sympathize with the boy in this respect, us both trapped in a limbo. Never aging, never growing old and dieing. I can change between the three steps in life, in the time of life of my choosing. Either a newborn, a young adult in his prime, or an old wise man.

Danny, on the other hand, will always be stuck in the body of a thirty year old man, destined to live as a commoner through all of the events to carry out through this half century. Soon after his sixtieth birthday, I will alter time so that his human half dies in a ghost fight, and he will come here. As a half ghost, half angel, he becomes the angel of death; the grim reaper. He is also, unfortunately, destined to stay the reaper for all time.

You see, it is law that half ghosts become the reaper. However, after him, there are no half ghosts. His halfa blood made him barren and, therefore, he will have no young to take his place. Since sorcerers no longer walk the Earth and the portals will be destroyed, there can never be another hybrid. He will be the reaper until the bitter end.

The one discrepancy in this sea of lives, of things written at the very start of all time. I knew he would be born when the Earth was still a molten ball in the bleak of space. I knew he would half die when the primordial ooze first sparked the origins of life. I knew he would battle the ghostly king when mud skippers first ventured onto land. I knew he would battle his inner demons when the first lizard skittered across the Triassic ground. I knew he would marry his true love when the meteor that destroyed the mighty tyrants of the land fell from the heavens. I knew he would die at the hands of Valerie Gray when man first stumbled out of a cave into the bright African sun.

I now know that, come the end of time and my destruction, he will become the new time master, watching Samantha Fenson stumble into her parent's spirit portal. Watch her fall in love with Daniel Manton. Watch her die at the hands of Vladimir May, who was given his ghost guns by Valerie Grasters after an unfortunate accident with his mother's job.

Thus, time will repeat.

------

-Everybody wants to be a cat _(Don't ask me where this came from, I don't know)-_

-General-

-Danny's POV-

I yelp as the blast singes my suit, the strange, fur coated ghost finally getting a hit in on me. Something feels weird, I swear I can feel something growing... I start to fall, fall, fall to the Earth below. I somehow manage to land on my legs and- legs? What in the world?

I look up through green tinted eyes at the ghost, who is laughing manically. "You'll be stuck as a cat for three hours, whelp!" he cackles before zipping off. My eyes grew wide, and I look at my arms... er, front legs. Sure enough, they're black with white paws. I'm an honest to god cat. Firstly, what the heck! Secondly, what can I do in my time as a cat?

It doesn't take long before a horrible, awful, wonderful idea pops into my head. My black and white striped head turns toward the huge castle behind me, the ugly green and gold decor visible from a mile away. I smirk and sprint toward it, leaping over branches and rocks before reaching the grounds, taking care to use the flower bed as a cat box before.

Upon reaching the castle gate, I nudge open the door and plod in, looking for my target... I hear the footsteps of expensive shoes, ah yes, here he comes in all of his creepy villain glory- Vlad Masters, who is currently glaring daggers as I smile at him, swishing my tail.

"What madness it his?" he hisses, picking me up by my scruff. I can't say how hard it is not to blast him right now, but if I want to take full advantage of this, I have to take up the part of an innocent stray. I mew at him, eye growing as large as I can. He drops me.

He stalks off, and I grin at the many pieces of Packer motif in the hall. However, everything in moderation; first jerseys, then posters. I tear at them with as much ferocity as I can, being sure to claw off any autographs. Finally, there is his prize; his autographed football. With a bit of flight, as I still have my powers, I grab the football and bite on it as hard as I can. Unfortunately, this gets it stuck on my teeth. Oh well, all the more fun.

I hold up my paw and shoot, being sure to create as huge a racket as I can by firing at the already shattered glass from my entrance into the glass case. Vlad runs in, screaming like I've never heard him scream before. I swear, he's hitting above a high C. It feels good.

"What have you done, you little monster!" he cries, his voice several notes higher than he normally uses. I only smile around the pig skin, spitting it out at Vlad's feet. He screams again, grasping the football like he would a child. I mew innocently back.

His face becomes murderous, if I was a ghost I would have fazed through the floor in pure fright alone. He roughly grabs me and lets loose the longest and most colorful string of curses I'd heard since I broke Ember's guitar in two. He throws me out, and I lay there for several minutes before becoming human again; and spitting out a shred of gold cloth.

-------

-Doodling Woes _(I always had a thing for doodling drabbles, so here's mine_)-

-romance/angst-

-Val's POV-

I am sitting in my chair, doodling on the scratch paper for some dumb test. I think it's math, I've stopped really trying in school, even though I somehow got into this college. I'm always up late chasing after that damn ghost boy who ruined my life.

I look down at my doodle and grumble, glaring at it as much as I can without drawing the teacher's attention. Damn it, I drew _him_ again. Well, at least this time it's him being hanged from a tree. Oh the number of things I'd do to have_ his_ head on a silver platter.

I still don't know how he does that; pops out of nowhere and leaves just as discreetly. It's just so weird, so suspicious. What does he do in his free time, menace young children? I think back and see him holding a glowing baby in his arms, the way I exploded at him. He deserves it, what kind of menace would kidnap a baby, even a ghost baby!

I look up just long enough to see the teacher reading a book before glancing around the room. I see Tucker, mindlessly toying around with his newest hand held, like he always has. I see Paulina, messing with her make up, like she always has. Finally, I see Danny and Sam, holding their new child and smiling like the head over heels fools they are.

I know he'll never loved me, he never did love me. It was just some attempt to stop his depression over disbelieving that Sam loved him back. He was on the rebound, and that's what I should have treated it as. Still, I can't help but wish it was real, that he loved me.

No, Valerie, you have to stop. Danny and Sam are married; with child to boot. It can't happen. I look down at the paper, and see a sketch of Danny kissing Sam. I hiss, erasing it with a lot more hostility than was absolutely needed. To see them there, holding that child is just too much for more broken heart to stand any more, it just hurts so much...

My thoughts trail to the child itself. Black haired and blue eyed, Danny's in every sense of the term. I can't help but think I've seen him somewhere besides the classroom, somewhere. As I ponder over this, my doodling continues. When I look down, my mind swims. It's the ghost kid holding that ghost baby. However, he doesn't look as I remember him. More caring, more protective, more... fatherly? It seems so odd to see him like that.

I glance around the room, and see Danny nuzzling his child against him again. That seems familiar too, but how, why? I look down at the paper, and do a double take. Now, let me say that, as an artist, I rarely, if ever, fill in my sketches. I leave them blank, for detailing. Now I'm glad I do, because, as I look between the sketch of the ghostboy and Danny, I _can't see a difference._ They're exactly alike, nothing changed. How can that be?

...Unless they're the same person? I shake my head, grumbling. Ludicrous. I glare at the picture before erasing it, leaving a good gray streak over Phantom's heart. It's impossible.

-------

-Punk'd!-

-humor/romance-

-Danny's POV-

I can't believe Sam talked me into this. A rave, now that was one thing I could live with. Going around in public as Phantom? Maybe. Raving _as_ Danny Phantom? What the heck? What's more, raving as a punk'd out Danny Phantom with chains, spikes and makeup?

Oh yes, that's right, it's Sam's birthday present. She's turning sixteen and has convinced her boyfriend to go to an all night rave as Danny Phantom. I'm not afraid of raving as Danny Phantom, what ultimate goth gathering wouldn't be complete without a spook or two? No, what I'm scared of is the cult following that has spread through all of Amity Park's goth population like fire. I have an inkling I'll be spending a majority of it flying.

I see the flashing purple lights, here it is. I grab Sam by the waist and shoot through the roof into the building, floating about ten feet high. Apparently, I need to work on my silent entrances, as the moment I float in everybody stops to stare. Great, just what I need.

Well, where's the party? Don't tell me they're going stay there and gawk. Oh, duh, I'm practically a rock star to these guys, they've gone into shock. Might as well break them of it, so we can have some fun. "I may be mistaken, but isn't this supposed to be a party for souls of the night? I was sort of hoping you wouldn't mind me crashing in on the fun."

They look for a minute before cheering explosively, calling out _'Phantom! Phantom!'_ like some crazed mob. Then again, that's what they may well have become. The music starts, and everybody starts dancing like there's no tomorrow. Heck, we dance like no tomorrow.

Sam and I are floating high above the crowd, head banging and doing all sorts of odd moves. It seems so weird flying and in front of everybody. But, I could get used to it. A fast paced Oingo Boingo song starts, and irony of ironies, it's Dead Man's Party. Some how I think the DJ did that on purpose. I see people below... freak dancing? Merf? I'm having a hard enough time constantly flying outside of the reach of fan girls below...

Still, we dance like we do in my room to this song; extremely awkwardly and ending up in one of those darn 'blushie' moments, as Tucker calls them. Even after nearly a year she still does that to me, and doing it in public is going to give the tabloids lots of fun.

We dance until the sun rises, at which point the room is filled with groans of protest, and she and I make a hasty retreat into my room, both a bit sore from the eight+ hours of hard dancing we did. Still, it was loads of fun, and I might do that again some time. At least, I think that until, in only a whisper, I get some rather odd news... There's a rave tonight.

_Everybody's coming, leave your body at the door. Leave your body and soul at the door..._

_(Dead Man's Party)_


	3. Part 3

-Paradise-

-angst-

-?'s POV-

Light penetrates through my eyes, beginning yet another new day. Great, another day of monotony in this forsaken spit of land ripped from the sky and shoved into the Earth.

I snarl as I heave myself up on my elbows from my dimly lit surroundings, forming a machete of energy in the palm of my hand. I shred away the leaves blocking the entrance to my humble abode, slashing away a few vines on the natural wooden walls for good for good measure. They'll have grown back by the time I return, they all have, always do.

I growl as I feel a stick under my stomach, probably disheveled from my restless sleep. I shift away, sneering at the twisted branch. My hand glows in power and sweeps across the ground, baking any plant matter that may have fallen during the night into small bits of smoldering ash. I snort in satisfaction at the sudden lack of leaves in my burrow.

It could easily be guessed I'm not a morning person, but that is horribly incorrect. While I do loathe mornings with a heated passion, I am not a person in the first place. I am not even properly _alive, _in the first place. I am something entirely different. Something odd.

I grumble as sunbeams flit across the crusty ditch I call a bed, the shifting leaves above dancing with the visible heat in some elaborate ballad. Yes, another wonderful morning in Hell coated over. At least, that's what I consider it, although most _humans_ refer to it as the Garden of Eden. The poor sentimental fools can never see the error of perfection.

I half heartedly step out of the clearing, being sure to crunch as many of the crisp, green leaves as I can, the small lizards flitting away in the heat of my bad mood, going to find another place to bathe in the sunlight. At least they can find a use for this cursed place.

They sky is a perfect, cloudless blue, the sun glowing like a ball of tempered lighting stuck in a giant piece of azure fly paper draped overhead. I snarl at it fiercely, turning away from the cause of my awakening at this ungodly hour. I hate being a light sleeper.

Same as I do every morning. The monotony of such events is driving me liberally insane, bit by bit. That's what humans will never get about perfection, it doesn't exist. There is only one perfect, and to live through that same perfect every day; well, it gets old really fast. That's why I hate this place, it was made perfect. It's so perfect it's sickening.

As I do every morning, I go to the small bushel of trees cropped up next to my den, if you want to call it that. I point and shoot the barest sliver of energy, as I do every morning. A small bundle of bananas fall onto the ground. I snap off one of them and eat it boredly.

Isn't being kidnapped and killed great? Stuck here for eternity in paradise, all alone. Yes, another gut wrenchingly perfect day in heaven on Earth for the late Raleigh Phantom.

------

-Tears (This was inspired by chapter four of i AM the Random idiot's fanfic _Free Spirit_.)-

-angst/tragedy (believe me, this is the purest angst; I got physically sick from writing it)-

-Danny's POV-

I couldn't move as it collapsed. I couldn't think when I heard her screams. I just couldn't.

It should have been just another ghost fight, just like any other. Skulker came and tried to pin me down for a skinning, and I dodged him. Jazz came to help out, as I was already tired from fighting off Ember earlier. She thought I could use the extra support. I did.

The fecal matter really hit the temperature control device when a massive missile appeared. I tried to stop it, honest I did, but it was too fast. All I could do was dodge. The explosive device sailed over my head- right into the bridge Jazz had taken cover under.

I was too shocked to do anything but watch as the massive stone and cement structure crushed my sister, her horrified yell pounding into my mind harder than any punch could.

My parents were watching the whole time, their eyes welling with tears over the loss of their child. They rushed forward toward the rubble, hopelessly clawing away at the hard gray shrapnel. I floated into the pile invisibly, joining in their search, even though I knew.

It dawned when I saw the crimson strokes just how far it had gone. I couldn't stand to look at the slowly leaking drips of red liquid. I closed my eyes and grabbed for her, tears joining the puddle as my hand closed around her quickly cooling wrist, no beat being felt.

I flew from the pile with her, the full weight of her end plowing away all my hope, all my joy. I heard gasps of horror. My eyes remained closed, unwilling to see her battered form.

My parent's sobs join the others, as well as the high pitched whine of a ghost based weapon. I didn't even attempt to dodge, to turn intangible, to do anything. I was numb. I couldn't think, feel, or do anything except picture what her mangled body must look like.

I willed my eyes to open, now glassy and dead. I looked toward my parents, their faces contorted in something between hatred, misery and grief. Their weapons were held ready, pointed directly at my tear stained face. I don't bother, closing them again and crying out.

I did all I could in that moment; I crumpled and cried, wailed, screamed. I cry out that my sister is gone; I wail that she didn't deserve this; I curse the heavens for stealing her away.

I knelt and held her form in my grasp, my gloved hands atop her head; two siblings, two friends torn away in the barest slip of time. It just seemed so ethereal to hold her so close.

I hugged her form and wailed out my breath in my most powerful attack, shattering the skies above. It's just so unfair for her. I held her body up to the heavens, my screams drowning into everyone's ears... Just as my parent's fatal beam hit me square in the back.

------

-It has been-

-general-

-3rd person's POV-

It has been ten years since Vlad Plasmius began his reign.

It has been nine years since he finally got his revenge on Jack Fenton.

It has been a eight years since he faced Maddie with a shotgun wedding.

It has been seven years since he murdered Tucker Foley, Valerie Foley, and Sam Fenton.

It has been six years since he stole their children.

It has been five years since he murdered Katrina Foley.

It has been four years since he brainwashed Lilith Fenton.

It has been three years since Maddie was killed for defying his will.

It has been two years since Lilith Fenton rebelled.

It has been one year since Lilith Fenton was killed.

It has been one month since the rebellion began.

It has been one week since his dethroning.

It has been one day since his ghost half was ripped out.

It has been one hour since he was killed by Danny Phantom; who died one decade ago.

------

-Rhyme Time (in this universe Danny and Ghostwriter became friends at some point...)-

-romance-

-3rd person POV-

Ghostwriter looked down at the book with a proud face; several copies strewn all over the place. Not again; no, not this time. Only once more would he force Danny to rhyme.

He checked it over for spelling errors, toying with one of his chestnut hairs.

_It had been a cold day in Amity Town; Everybody cheering, not a single frown._

_Except for one boy, black haired and blue eyed; one with a great secret to hide._

_How would he tell her, he asked with a frown. How could he pin the courage down?_

_He heard a crunch and looked over his shoulder, seeing his affection's beholder._

_He gulped in his throat as she sat down beside, pleading how long his love he could hide._

"_Danny, calm down, it's Christmas." she said, playfully messing with the top of his head._

_Alas, poor Danny, as dim as could be; not knowing that Sam shared his wish to be free._

_She harbored emotions just like his own; she too would probably never have known._

_However, that is why I am writing this story; so that their love lives shall never be gory._

_They blushed and turned toward opposite sides; wishing to say what both hearts cried._

"_So... What's new for my favorite ghostboy?" she asked, tone without courage to employ._

"_I wish I knew, I feel so confused..." Danny moaned in a sad tone he seldom used._

"_What's so confusing, Danny?" she returned, her cheeks beginning to redden and burn._

"_I just can't say it, It's just too much..." he mumbled, unsure if his tongue he could trust._

"_You can tell me anything, you know that." she said while cautiously rubbing his back._

"_Sam, it's about you; It's so hard to say it..." he finally said, his face dropping a wee bit._

"_What do you mean? I haven't hurt you, right?" Sam asked, her heart cringing in fright._

"_No you haven't, it's not you, it's me." Danny corrected, resting his head on his knee._

"_What do you mean, what's going on?" she asked fearfully, wondering what was wrong._

"_Sam, how can I say this; I love you." He confessed, blush riding to his black hairy nest._

"_What? Danny, it's too good to be true; I love you as well." she said as her smile grew._

_Danny's eyes widened, and he jumped into the air, snow falling off and into Sam's hair._

_Sam smiled bigger than ever before; her heart screaming with love no longer ignored._

_Danny landed softly and gave Sam an embrace; his head beginning to rub in her face._

"_Sam I love, I always have. Denying it has made me sad..." Danny said, very glad._

"_Hey Wait a minute... We're talking in rhyme!" Sam yelped, after recognizing my sign._

_Danny smiled and held on to Sam tighter, saying aloud, "Thank you, you Ghost Writer."_

_And on that note I bid you ado; rest assured, the tale of this couple is far from through._

_------_

-In the End of All Time_ (there is _a story behind this, but I doubt I will elaborate)-

-angst/general (epilogue)-

-3RD person POV-

When the smoke cleared, rubble filled the landscape. Smoke billowed from the tons upon tons of shrapnel and concrete. Nothing could be seen, nothing could be distinguished. It was hell's war zone. It was hardly recognizable as a place that had been inhabited.

Scorch marks covered every square inch of the almighty crater in the center of all the destruction. The crater was dark, pitch black to the umpteenth degree. Partly melted.

However, one thing caught the eye of all present. Something bone chilling. Something heart stopping. The torn remnants of a shroud covering a body. A skeleton, to be exact.

A skeleton in white T-shirt with red trim and blue jeans, with a mop of ashy black hair.

_Well, what else can be said? His friends and sister told officials he was killed by falling concrete from one of the collapsed houses. Danny Fenton's funeral was one week later. _

_People took notice of the absence of their mislabeled hero. However, he was pushed aside, the spook forgotten to all bar the three who knew him well. Many were convinced that he was gone forever; and they were right. Seldom will you find a person in Amity Park who remembers the young man's name, even rarer one who actually wonders just what his ultimate ending was. It is like he simply never existed... to the people of Amity._

_Nobody knew the poor boy's fate except for three poor souls. Fate dealt with them as the fickle mistress does. Happy endings are few and far between, and that is true for them._

_In the end, things were as they were meant to be. Tucker Foley and Valerie Gray married, having three children before dieing. They died in America's worst blackout, as a result of the pump to their Oxygen supplies stopping. Jazz Fenton grew up to become a brain surgeon, saving dozens of lives, but always remembering the one she couldn't._

_However, not everyone ended up for the better. The night after Danny Fenton's funeral, Sam Manson committed suicide by throwing herself off of her parent's home, leaving not even a note or a letter to be seen. She would never know that she was pregnant with the child of a certain halfa, a child that- if born- would have been killed by Valerie Foley, resulting in her divorce with Tucker Foley. To this day, her remains are buried next to the charred skeleton of her best friend, her lover, and her reason for living._

_You may be wondering what occurred to the poor soul of Danny Fenton. He was never seen again; Phantom or otherwise. However, if you ever happen to be in the Ghost Zone, and see one of his old foes floating by; listen hard to the winds- it is said that, on the darkest of eve, they carry the forlorn whisper of two little words that contain a life story;_

_'Going Ghost!'_

------


	4. Part 4

-Who am I?-

-general/angst/mystery-

-?'s POV-

What's going on? I'm sitting on top of a big, big building I'm told is my home... But I can't remember it. I can't remember the lab under it either. Nor do I recognize any of the glowing equipment down there. They say I built some, stole some, and used some.

Who am I? I can't remember anything at all... Where am I, it's all a blur of black, white, silver and green. What's going on? All I remember is a bright flash... A pair screams, male and female... Like something from a distant time. Like a movie I saw years ago. It's like I'm in some alien world in another's body. It's _disturbing. _Just what is _going on here?_

Why does that red headed woman hate me? Something about murdering Jack? I don't even _know _a Jack. She seems like... I know her from somewhere... Somewhere far away. She calls me names one would expect to be said at an old fashioned freak show. Why?

How come she chases me with guns? I run away and tell her I mean no harm, but then she brings up that I betrayed this Jack person all along, fooled him for twenty years before finishing him off for good, right under his nose. That she couldn't believe the things I'd done, that I could be so heartless. I'm not a bad person! I wish I knew what was going on!

Her daughter... She keeps in insisting that I'm half-ghost. How can that be, ghosts don't exist! It's all camp fire stories! She tells me that I was in an accident with... something. It starts with a P, she says it happened over twenty years ago... Who_ are_ all these people?

Who are these ghosts everybody tells me about? Danny Phantom... Vlad Plasmius... Box ghost... Skulker... Technus... Someone called Danielle? Something about clones, I think.

Just who is that guy, the one called halfa? Sometimes his eyes are blue, but other times they change color... and when he's mad, they glow. I think I might have read about eye color changing with emotions, but that's not it, because when I get mad, mine glow too.

I've seen him change... Big glowing rings go around him. They change his hair... His clothes, too. Hair changing from dark to light, and his clothes do just the opposite. It's like he can _change _what he _is_. Maybe there is some truth behind this ghost thing... but if there is, am I one too? If so, what happened? Probably whatever happened to him...

Those three other ones... The daughter and the other two, they keep on saying that I'm a halfa too. Half ghost. That there's a twenty year difference between me and the other one. I just don't know, how can it be possible? Half ghost? It's all tom foolery! I'm a regular adult, why do they keep on telling me I'm not? Why won't they believe me when I say it?

...and why does everybody keep calling me Invis-o-bill?

------

-A mother's Love (one of my FAVORITE Danny Phantom conspiracies)-

-angst-

-Maddie's POV-

The moment I got the pregnancy test results, it was all I could to not break down and cry.

I still wonder how they don't know. It seems so obvious. Now that I know what happened in the Fenton portal to my poor little boy, it's become so much more real. More true.

Why didn't they wonder why he didn't get ecto-acne too? He should have, the same thing happened. Only I;_ we;_ knew why. If only they could put the pieces together, so I didn't have to say it. I can only hope he'll take it well. I doubt it, the things that man has done to Danny, to all of us... How could I have ever loved him? How? Now it has resulted in this.

I have to hide the truth, before they figure it out. Danny's smart, it wouldn't take very long before the puzzle made sense. Then, he would come after me, wanting to know why I never told. I couldn't stand to watch him accusing me, he looks so much like that beast.

The same build, the same messy black hair, and his eyes, the color of a frigid winter sky. It's like looking into some twisted mirror, where I see some spawn of his. A spawn I love with all my heart and soul... A bastard child, but I couldn't love him more. I just wish they weren't so similar. Clueless until things hit them square in the face. Cunning and swift to think on their feet. Brave and willing to do anything to protect their loved ones.

If only, if only he had been Jack's child, not that, that _thing's._ Then this nightmare would never have happened. As far as they know, he is Jack's child. Jack never even stopped to wonder how I could be carrying his child when we hadn't seen each other in a month.

Why did I run away to him? Fall into his arms and beg for mercy? I should known it would never have ended well. I can still feel his slimy claws reaching out for my cheek, to kiss me with those cold, horrible lips that I want to slash away from his grinning face.

I have nightmares about him often, and discovering the harm he's caused my family has only worsened it. That snarky stance, that piercing gaze, that chastising smirk... I _hate _him so much. All because of my witlessness. In retrospect, I completely over reacted. So Jack forgot our anniversary; I should have known he wouldn't remember. It's who he is. But no, I couldn't deal with it and ran to the one person I never should even come near.

Now I have to live with it. I only wish that my family didn't have to know... But they _will _find out in time. We're curious beings, and too tight knit for them not to notice how I am.

I look at the passage apprehensively, barely able to swallow my fear and open the door. There he is, sitting on the couch, like nothing is wrong. If only he knew how much he reminds me of that man the night I crawled up to his door in the bleak Wisconsin rain.

------

-Sweet Nothings to Nobody (came to me playing Animal Crossing, strangely enough)-

-angst/romance/tragedy-

-Danny's POV-

Ah, I guess you heard me, right? People think I'm crazy, talking to myself... They'll never understand me. Nobody ever could, nobody ever will. I'm alone now; they're all dead.

Sad, selfish and pathetic as it sounds, I'm here because I have nobody to love me. Some people get through life fine without love. Me, though? I need there to be somebody.

Paulina? She ran off and became a prostitute in Vegas. Last I heard, some tabloid magazine found her going at it hot and heavy with Packers' quarterback, Dash Baxter. It wouldn't surprise me, those two could never really pan it out to settle, or break up. Holding onto something that isn't there any more, hoping it still is... Like I am.

Valerie? When she found out my secret she ran out and jumped off a bridge, committing suicide. She left a note apologizing for what she did and that she should be punished by becoming a ghost herself... Ironic thing is, she didn't. She passed on to the next world, whether she went to the high almighty or to the lowest fire pit in town, I haven't a clue.

Sam? Oh, how I wish she were here. But no, she's passed on too. Her parents sent her to a boarding school, and the other girls spiked her water because a jock fell for her; but she didn't care. Not that I can blame the guy, but still. They were jealous, so the girls laced her food with arsenic. She never knew of it until she was in her deathbed, me at her side.

I can never forget seeing her just laying there, her skin so pale, her eyes without their twinkle... I almost died the rest of the way when her heart monitor stopped. It wasn't her time, she was too beautiful for this world. A dark angel, my dark angel. Now she really is an angel, somewhere up there. Probably having an argument of morals with god over 'drowning the poor animals' in the great flood, or chatting with Azrael, angel of death.

All gone. Now I'm alone, acting like they're still here. I would die if only for Sam to be alive again in a heartbeat. Well, if I _had _a heartbeat to speak of. I am human, but it's gone.

That's why people think I'm some loon talking to myself... Somehow I feel like Sam's here, sitting next to me. Laughing it up at how I out-brooded her, at my morbid outlook. If I could here her laugh one last time I'd die as a happy halfa. But no, never again.

I know, deep, deep inside, that she's not here. That she's a trillion light years away from this hellhole alley I call home, away from the dingy nasty burger I pilfered from the trash. Away from the graying picture of us at that Ninth grade school dance in my pocket.

So I'll stay here forever, screaming her name and of my undying love for her. Yelling that my dead heart still longs. That I'm trapped here forever; saying sweet nothings to nobody.

------

-Guns and Sorrows-

-general/angst- (ack, what _is it_ with me and angst?)

-Maddie's POV-

The battle had been quick. The ghost boy was distracted while dodging a ghost snakeand flew right into the beam of the Fenton Thermos. It warmed my heart to see Jack's stunned face as he examined the device, as if expecting it to suddenly explode. It well could have.

Now the Ghost boy was floating in a state of suspended animation, in a ghost proof shield of the highest power. He should be awake, but no. It confused me to discover he snored slightly, especially considering that ghosts don't sleep at all. They have no need for rest.

It is as I am monitoring his energy levels that I realize there's a slow murmur. I look around, tuning in. It is then that I realize it's the spook, sleep talking. Being the scientist I am, I grab a clipboard and get closer, to better understand him. I often wonder, Do ghosts only think of the thing holding them to Earth, or do they have some form of primal mind?

Clipboard and pencil in hand, I begin to write down words. I don't think about what he's saying, only concentrating on writing them. After several lines he quiets, his young face now contorted. His eyes are clamped in pain, and teeth grit in frustration and horror. Odd.

I look down at the lines, and I feel my stomach drop between my feet. _Oh dear god._

"_Mom, dad! No guns, no guns! I don't want to hurt anybody! Please, no! No guns!"_ is read in scratchy print. My mind races, thinking of my daughter's psychobabble. Names? _His parents. _Objects? _Guns. _Action? _Denying fault._ What did it mean? My heart stopped.

_Abusive parents. _The phrase rings through my mind like death, a trumpets playing taps. Worse still, was the fact that _guns, _of all things, were the cause. Could a death by gun from his parents be the reason he is still here, on Earth? Violent deaths do tend to form ghosts. It would also make sense of his odd behavior of protecting people. _His calling._

Despite everything I knew as a ghost hunter, I suddenly felt pity for the young spirit. It all fit in a morbid, bloody web of misfortune. My maternal instincts tell me that this boy shouldn't be attacked and shot at, my idea for the cause of his death. It must bring back such bad memories. If he remembered his living life, that is-- which he seems to do.

Against every single thing I had been taught, I open the container. It opens with a mechanical hiss, and the boy's eyes open. When he see me, they widen, and he yelps.

It is then that he notices that he is free. Instead of bolting, like I expected, he gives me a befuddled stare, green eyes widening in a mix of confusion and mistrust. Understandable.

"Why?" he asks. I give him a smile, replying, "You've had enough happen. Just don't expect this again." He quirks his eyebrows before shrugging and flying away, Unaware of what I'd heard. Of the words he mumbled while unconscious that changed me forever.


	5. Part 5

-Regrets-

-angst/poetry-

-Dan'S POV-

It was the end of all time.

The end of all things new and old, the end of everything we once knew.

Explosions, death, a city painted in red. and I don't mean from the pigment.

People scattered, people screamed; children cried over the bodies of their parents.

Mother and fathers wailed out the names of their taken offspring.

Lovers held each other's hands, while the flames consume them in eternal heat.

Siblings hugged each other dearly, tears flowing from blood shot eyes.

Friends gave each other words of hope, never to be fulfilled.

The world was coming to a dramatic close.

My eyes seemed to shine in effort not to flinch at the wailings.

I haven't quite gotten used to the sounds of suffering, despite the years I have heard them.

No matter. Such trivial issues can soon be disposed of.

Yes... The time has come.

I hid in the shadows of the shrapnel, awaiting the impending end. Any moment now.

A bright light filled the horizon, and just like that, everything fell deaf.

The world became an old, silent movie, full of blacks, grays and whites.

Just the way I wanted it.

The world was a wasteland with naught left to be seen.

An endless plain of ash and smoke, tinting the sky an angry crimson.

It went on forever in all directions, no landmarks or signs that life had ever been present.

Just the way it would always be.

I perch across a mound of the great mixture of death and heat, thinking about such things.

It seems I have run out of conversations to have between my two halves.

They can never cooperate anyway.

Ah well, their loss. I only wish they wouldn't give me such awful migraines.

I sit here eternal, the lone figure on this wasteland reaching into the plains of infinity.

A child of hatred, the son of pain, the spawn of jealousy and loathe.

It was the end of all time.

and I didn't have any regrets.

To whatever species finds this in a billion years or so;

Heed this warning- do not trifle with the dead.

-Dan Phantom

------

-Lift me(has 'Jazzman' from the Simpsons. Since it's public, the lyrics should be okay)-

-angst/romance/fluff/ song fic- (normally, I _HATE _song fics... but I like this one.)

-Sam's POV-

I sigh as I lounge out on my bed, thinking about him. _Him... _Who else could it be. Those endearing eyes, that scraggly hair mop, that adorable, lopsided smile... _Sigh... _He doesn't love me back. He can't, not with the way he looks at _Paulina _and _Valerie. _Those shallow witches, what have they got? Pretty faces? That's _all _he cares about. Personality? _Please. _He'll never love me back. Just listen to how much venom he spits when her calls out '_WE'RE NOT LOVEBIRDS!' _How can it _not _be true? It's become an automatic response. People just don't get that it will never happen. _No matter how much I want it to..._

_Lift me, won't you lift me_

_Above the Old Routine..._

I reach up somewhere above my head, the remote for my CD player at last being captured. I fumble with it until the radio turns on to KDRK, my favorite station. All goth all the time. Maybe some good music will help my feel better. _'My shadow's the only one who walks beside me. My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating..' _So much for _that. _I turn off the radio, throwing the remote somewhere to my left, where it lands with a soft _thud. _Is the entire world joining forces to make miserable? Probably, knowing _my _luck...

_Play it nice, keep it clean..._

_Jazz man!_

It all seems like everything that can has gone wrong. Danny's out there, risking his life every day, never knowing how much pain and worry he puts me through. When he comes back bloody and battle scarred, he doesn't think of the tears I shed afterward. Nope. Who's the one he longs for? Not the one who tends to him. Not the one who risks life and limb for him. No, he goes for the _pretty girls._ But then... Why did he have that spazz attack after the whole Gregor thing? It had shed the light of hope, however dim it may be.

_'Cause when the Jazzman's testifying_

_a faithless man believes..._

Sometimes he seems so great. So sweet. He can't even guess how it pulls at my heart to see that innocent smile and the spark in those china blue eyes. One laugh from him can make it all worth it. One grin can make my whole day. and he isn't even _aware he does it._

_he can sing you in to paradise_

_or bring you to your knees!_

That's the spell he's cast. Clueless of the pain he causes- and that he heals it just as quick.

_Jazz man! Oh, Jazzman!_

-_------_

_-_Punishment (I shouldn't call this DP- It's completely my OC being an evil little demon)-

**-SEVERE VIOLENCE. SEVERE GORE. RATED MATURE.-**

-3RD person POV-

_A young girl, no older than eight, ten at the most, was walking along the sidewalk, whistling an tune resembling the Hamtaro theme song, if you forgot several verses_

_She comes to a shop, smiling brightly in the window to the man inside. He looked at her indifferently and grunted, returning to his menial task of sweeping. Just another runt._

_She enters, saying, "Sir, I need a quarter to call home, my mom forgot to pick me up at the movies. Can I have one?" innocently, still smiling. Hopefully he would help her._

_The man looked up at her and glared, hissing, "Go away, kid. I'm busy, you know. Doing my job. You need a quarter, go get one yourself. Nobody's going to help you in the real world. you need to toughen up squirt." before gruffly pointing a tattooed arm at the door._

_The girl sighs, leaving the store. "Bad people need to be punished." she mumbles as she steps out the door, her hair swirling as if by a breeze, although there was no wind. The sidewalk seemed to spark, following the cracks of the ground in a sickening light show._

_The shining stream rushed through the store, surrounding the man in a glowing pentagram. There was time for him to let out a startled 'what in the name of?' before bright sparks shot from the five corners, encapsulating him in a twisted, green chrysalis._

_His coworkers watched, gaping in silent screams, as the bright, supernatural force branded into his body, leaving elaborate white swirls designs etched upon his skin like an inhuman, abstract art, his flesh canvas. He was screaming in agony. His eyes bulged and his very skin began to simmer and burn right off his bone, leaving an oozing mass._

_Soon the blood flowing from his body begin to sizzle, drops flying outward and hitting the people within, who screamed at the searingly hot liquid. Their chorus of yelling never left the building; it had been sound proofed to stop the music they sold from escaping. _

_The fire sprinklers never went off, it looked as if something had heated up the pipes enough for them to expand, so that the water could not get out. Pressure began to build, a shaking sensation filling the building as the pipes finally gave, steam spewing out._

_As she walked away, a bright light filled the small shop, followed by pained screams and the sound of crunching metal. Several drops of red liquid splattered against the glass front, dripping slowly to the bottom in sickly crimson streaks, staining the clear barrier._

"_Bad people need to be punished." she repeated as she turned a corner, hair no longer floating. She began to whistle again; turning to a black haired, blue eyed man on the street. She smiled innocently at the man within, asking cutely, "Can I have a quarter?"_

_------_

-Bloody Apples (I need to appease the violent, bloodthirsty part of my mind sometime...)-

**-VIOLENT. VIOLENT. RATED MATURE-**

-Dan's POV-

My forked tongue licks the edges of my lips and I hold the man by the throat, the fear flowing off his slack form in almost tangible waves tantalizes my taste buds. Ah yes, you simply have to _love _it when you can _taste _the fear you can inspire with a glare. Of course, it would only make sense that seeing me would bring such an emotion. His savior turned on him in the form of some kind of demonic, bloodthirsty devil sent to bring hell afoot.

I gently flex my arms, hands beginning to crush his windpipe ever so slowly, to bring the most pain and panic. After ten years, I had perfected murder into a fine art worthy of the geniuses of History long past. It is _my _art. Some use pain, other pastels; I use pain and suffering, with more than a splash of blood. His eyes bulge and his face turns a bleak white, almost like a ghost, pardon the pun. His hands are slowly losing their grip, less holding and more hanging off my own appendages in an effort to remove them.

Finally the light dims from his frail green eyes, his hands now falling to the sides of his blood stained shirt, now such a deep red you can barely make out the color beneath. The wind from such heights has already dried the bodily fluid, the shirt not hard and stiff.

However, that is not enough. It is never enough. I grin down at the sheet white faces below, me eyes taking on a feral, hungry demeanor. I bring my other hand up to his legs, the other still holding his neck in a crushing vice. With all the joy of a child on Christmas day, I pull my hands apart. A wet, vicious _crack _fills the air like a gun blast. What little blood that was left in the corpse is now draining away, through the massive slice formed by my jerking the cadaver in two. The spinal cord is now snapped clean at the waist, two vertebrae remaining as a stub attached to the young man's cargo pants and lower half.

People scream as the boy's bottom half falls to the ground with a tantalizing _'splat', _left in what would have been a horrifically painful position had the victim still been alive. I so love that sound. For all those days trapped in the blasted thermos, once again hearing that _crunch_ I so adore made it all worth it. I always said Tucker had guts, and here's the proof.

As I watch some scatter, I begin to wonder what it would feel like to be slicing Dash with an ectoplasmic blade again. It felt so endearingly wonderful the first time, perhaps it gets better the more I did it... Or maybe burning away the skin of Paulina's face until she was nothing but muscle and bone? I daresay she never _did _apologize for that comment about being hot headed regarding my hair... Maybe a visit is in short order for the Latina girl.

Ah well, so much to do, so little time. With my weaker self now a smoldering crater in the pavement somewhere a few miles West, the world is my apple, ready for the taking. I always did love poison apples in my youth. Except now they're a bit more than fruit covered in crimson food dye with a bit of lemon. Say, I never tried _bloody apples..._


	6. Part 6

-Solsdier Boy (Wow, I thought I gave up the songfics. Oh well. The song is public.)-

-angst/fluff/romance-

-Sam's POV-

I smile as I watch her resting form, messy Raven black hair tickling her nose with every breath she takes. Bright blue eyes are closed in peaceful sleep, just like he used to look. It's easy I forget that it's his daughter, not his clone or a younger him sent by Clockwork.

_Leaves from the vine_

_Falling so slow_

It's been over a decade since he was seen. It's been over a decade since he died, one of the thousands of casualties of the war. He's dead, gone. I used to consider suicide, just to be with him. But I can't. Suicide victim are sent to Hell, and I know Danny's in heaven. Plus, I couldn't leave Raleigh. His daughter. Our daughter. She needs a mother, someone who can help her with her powers. It was so sudden when she just up and floated in the den. She looked so frightened, so scared. It was in that moment I knew I could never leave her.

_Like fragile tiny shells_

_Drifting in the foam_

I gaze out the window at the many stars. The ones I could almost touch when he flew me to the ends of the Earth. The ones we danced among on our wedding night. The ones he wanted to visit and see. He never did become an astronaut. It was his dream. Such a long, long time ago... I remember the twinkle of those eyes when we meet secretly in my room at night, so my parents would never know. Just like a sweet Romeo. His lopsided grin when we whispered sweet nothings in each other's ears between kisses. How I miss it all.

_Little soldier boy_

_Come marching home_

Every night I pray he'll come back. I'm not usually the religious type, but if it'll help, somehow, I'll do it for every hour. I miss my lover. I miss my husband. I miss my best friend in the world. I miss my hero. I miss my Danny. He was my angel, my Phantom. The one who kissed away my tears after a nightmare. The one who hugged me until all my worries and regrets were washed away, as if by a Summer storm. He was part of me.

_Brave soldier boy_

_Comes marching home..._

Tears sting behind my eyes as I watch the sky. There's dark clouds, a storm is coming. I hope I don't get sick, that'd be just what I need. I shut the window and move to the door, giving one last, longing look outside. I can almost imagine that that cloud looks like his symbol. I almost giggle at the thought- almost being the key phrase. I swear to my dieing day, that that shooting star slowed down at the window, and smiled before darting away.

------

-Broken computer screen; fourteen years of unrequited love (less deep this time around)-

-romance(fluff)/humor-

-Tucker's POV-

I'm locked away in my room, slaving away on my computer. Incredibly, I've gotten hooked on the strangest, weirdest of games- Sonic Adventure 3. Danny and Sam are totally obsessed on it, they've gotten well over a hundred hours. If memory serves they've got some records as far as speed finishing on levels. They play Knux and Rouge the most.

Oddly enough, they spend most of their time messing with chao, of all things. You see, with the third addition was included the ability to personalize your chao, even to the point of what shape their body was and their abilities. Also, the chao from all around the world interact together. Like most, the three of us made chao versions of ourselves. It took hours of hacking on my part to get Danny's the ability to change from Fenton to Phantom.

The three of them always play together. Really, it gets sort of funny when 'Ghostboy' shoots little green 'chao rays', as we dubbed them, at any chao in breeding season that comes near 'Lillith'. There was this one called 'DPEF' that had it's mood drop to zero when 'Ghostboy' gave him a particularly well-aimed head butt. We watch the guy occasionally, he always goes for 'Lillith'. He also has firey hair, red eyes and a black and white outfit we know all too well. I wonder if Clockwork knows of Dan's little 'hobby'. He probably does, a chao named 'Clocky' is always following 'DPEF' everywhere and spin kicking him when he gets near our chao. Who knew Clockwork plays video games?

'Treckno' never gets the girls, poor little fella. He's gone into mating season more times than I can count, but he has yet to mate with anyone else's chao. No little bown two tones or anything, heck, when he went up to this chao named 'Brainzilla' she attacked him with what I swear was a mini Fenton-Anti-Creep Stick. If that's Jazz's, her chao has issues.

Suddenly, flowers grow around 'Ghostboy'. Oh good lord- Danny's chao is in mating season! Wait until I tell him, he'll be as red as the tomato Sam tried to force on me at lunch! A pink chao named 'Princess' (guess who owns her) comes up and tries to get 'Ghostboy' to 'get it on'. Wait a second, did he just... Danny's chao just refused Paulina's! I can't help but smirk at the comedic happenings of our little pixelated pets. 'Princess' just ran off to 'Dash Jr.' and 'Star', crying. If you're wondering, the game is actually pretty damn popular in school- even the 'A-list' has chao. I was amazed to find Paulina's and Mikey's chao getting it on behind some shrubbery- that was _way _too creepy for me.

Something catches my eye- 'Lillith' is coming up to 'Ghostboy'. The music changes, and the two chao start -H. O. L. Y. Danny and Sam's chao are making out, hard... 'Lillith' just dragged 'Ghostboy' behind a bush, and I stop watching there. If only Danny and Sam copied there chao's actions... without the 'mating season'. That would just freak me out.

My phone rings. It's Danny, yelling, "Tucker, did you give 'ghostboy' a heart fruit?!"

------

-The Assignment (if Danny told Lancer his secret, this is how I think he might do it.)-

-general/poetry (no angst?! Finally!)-

-Lancer's POV-

So it's come to this. I've managed to pin down Danny Fenton. Forced him to tell why he's always late or missing. Why he carries burns, scars, limps, or a combination of the three.

_Paper of Reason, by Danny Fenton_

_Yes, I know I've skipped class and been tardy, but there is a very good reason. Just read._

_I t started on a normal day. Just the three of us, snooping around._

_A call from parents, they bring me down to see their newest invention, the ghost portal._

_M s. Manson, as you call her, convinced me to tinker with the portal, get it to work._

_P art of me said no, but I went in anyway, my parents were so sad it didn't work... ZAP!_

_H orrific pain was all I felt, everything completely white. I screamed, 'twas all I could do._

_A lmost dead, I fall out of the device. I look to the side, at a mirror, and see my reflection._

_N ext thing I see's white hair, green eyes. I've been changed. I'm glowing. I'm floating._

_T urns out it made me part dead, part ghost. That's right, ghost. Been for over a year._

_O rdinarily, I would have said something, but my parents are ghost hunters, so I feared..._

_M asked behind my clumsiness is a hero. I was christened as Phantom. Danny Phantom._

_I am Phantom. Not a typo, not kidding. Sort of explains why I was gone all the time, don't it? Off fighting ghosts. If you want proof, look at the picture along with this letter of me 'Goin' Ghost'. I'm called a halfa; half human, half ghost. The only other one is Vlad, Vlad Masters. You can find out about him by looking up 'Dalv Co.' or 'The Wisconsin Ghost'. I hope you understand why I never told, lord knows the tests they'd do on me if it leaked out to say, the guys in white. I'd rather not see my organs while I'm still half alive. _

_From,_

_Danny Fenton/ Danny Phantom. (How did you people not_ see _that?!)_

_PS:I didn't, repeat, DID NOT attack the mayor! I was framed by Walker, THANK YOU!!!_

_If Vlad finds this, stopping trying to kill dad, get away from mom, and GET A CAT!!!_

I drop my coffee cup. 'Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde!' I scream, the brown liquid pouring to the ground. "This explains everything; but how?!" I ask nobody, gesticulating wildly.

Looking at my desk, I see a small photo that had escaped my notice. On the picture was Danny, one electric blue ring on the center of his body, encircling him vertically, moving horizontally. One the left side of the ring was Danny's black hair, blue eyes and white T shirt. On the right side was Phantom's white hair, green eyes, and black jumpsuit.

I must ask about 'Vlad', at least find out how Danny knows him. When I look up to check on the students, they're gone, the only trace of them a snow-white hair on Danny's desk.

------

-Prisoner-

-angst/song-

-Underline is Danny's POV, italic is Sam's-

_It was a day, long, long ago._

These four dark walls, these iron bars...

_Sirens and shooting from my best friend's home._

My haven from what I've done and seen.

_An endless pathway, an act of slow motion-_

Knife for the heart, poison for the mind

_He was taken away that cold, hard day._

Reminding me of things I wanna leave behind.

_Darkness is to light_

_what you are to my mind._

_Never lost, never gone,_

_always listening to my midnight song._

_I think of him every time_

'Twas a normal day inside my home.

_I pass by the door that held his soul in._

Everything peaceful- how could I'd have known?

_Knowing never never again _

Yelling and screaming,

_will he walk those hallowed hallways._

crashes and bleeding,

_Closed every day, I see spider webs._

accusations thrown around

_Never peace being put down to bed._

like so many leaves in a windstorm.

_I thought I was safe, I thought they were kind._

_Never thought they would come and make me hide._

_Crash and burn, run away,_

_run away until you're dead today._

_I await the return, knowing what I have learned_

So now I'm here, all by myself.

_hoping and yearning for that happy day..._

to become the prisoner of my mind.

_When all the pain will go away..._

------

-Bitter sweet-

-angst-

-Danny's POV-

When I got the news, I didn't know whether to dance, to laugh, or break down and cry. He was finally gone. No more pain, no more worry, no more sleepless nights. _No more Vlad._

When the phone call came from the police station that Vladimir Masters had died in his sleep, I didn't know what to say. I should be the happiest halfa alive- but is it right to enjoy the death of another man? Is it a sin to sing in the rainy streets that he has perished?

When my parents heard, they cried and wailed... Well, dad did. Mom just comforted him over his lost friend, the one who had, unbeknown to them, tried to kill him and hurt her.

When my friends found out, the rejoiced and were merry. Happy that they would no longer wake up at unholy hours in the morning to discover I'd been kidnapped. Glad that they no longer would have nightmares of myself beside him, joining in the great blood bath. There was no danger of the above, but it had kept us up many a night previous.

I had barely taken the time to find out just what had killed the man I considered my greatest foe- cancer. Cancer of the brain. Cancer induced by a kind of radiation, left to stew for, oh, twenty or so years... It scared me to think I might have the same, but the medical tests clearly stated I had there were no grounds for such fear. It must have been the proto-portal's lack of stabilization, the radiation was of an infinitely higher degree.

I think back to the alternate time line where my father was hit by the portal blast instead of Vlad. He probably has brain cancer too... Had. He's probably dead in that time line. Dead. It's so odd to think of him as dead as he weeps not twenty feet away, ghost-dotted tissue drooping from tears. He's dabbing away at puffy red eyes, hands shaking so badly they can barely hold the quickly dampening paper enough not to jab himself in the eye. Vlad would've enjoyed seeing it, his old main target's clumsiness causing his own harm.

At his funeral, there were hundreds of people he knew from the business world. Ones who saw him as a great man, not a cold hearted villain after an innocent's blood. They'll never know how demented he was- they see him with false honor. My enemy is dead, and I ended up mourning him all the same. Who would have guessed it that day he ambushed me in his mansion's lab, transforming in to Plasmius and sending me through hurdle after hurdle in his twisted version of a chess game. Now it check mate- the king is dead.

It turns out the accident wasn't my dad's fault. Someone had sabotaged the portal in an attempt to get the paranormal society closed down from campus for good. Somebody by the name of Fredrick Isak Showenhower, apparently. The name rings a bell somewhere...

All I can say about this turn of events... Well, this is bitter sweet.


	7. Part 7

-Graveyard shift (AU)-

-general (Intro of fic that never made it past the first chapter)-

-Sam's POV-

It was a normal night in the Amity Cemetery. Not a soul to be seen, the only light the full moon shining through the fog, casting a ghastly glow among the graves. Admittedly, the night shift always gave me the creeps around here. Oh well, it's my job as grave keeper.

I swung around my flashlight from stone to stone, grave to grave. Sometimes punks come to T-P the place, especially around this time of year, with Halloween but one week away. For some the day means parties, for others it means candy- for me, it means extra work.

I caught movement out the corner of my eye. Guess a kid found a way in, I'll have to buy another lock- they probably used bolt cutters to get in. I look at the shadow, wondering, 'What're you up to... eggs, toilet paper, silly string?' while approaching the silhouette.

He doesn't notice as I sneak up behind him. Ah yes, punishment is oh so sweet... I grab out for his collar and hoist him in the air, getting my first good look at him. He's younger than me, fourteen I'd say. Snow white hair, pale skin and glowing green eyes... Wearing a _jumpsuit. _Odd attire... Maybe he got lost on the way to a costume party or something.

He gives me a shocked look, blubbering, "You, you can _see _me?!"His eyes were wide and muscles rigid. I looked at him piercingly, snapping, "Of course I can see you..."

He 'eeped', squeaking, "You're... you're not supposed to see ghosts... How can you see me?!" while gesticulating as best he could while I was still clutching onto his shirt.

I shake my head. Ghosts? Kid must be on _something. _I hiss, "I don't believe in ghosts... What're you doing in _my _graveyard, kid? Thought you'd vandalize the place? A prank?"

He stopped thrashing and just laughed, his body's twist making me drop him. "You work in a graveyard and you don't believe in ghosts? I could cut the irony with a butter knife..." he managed between laughs, waving one hand and pounding the ground with the other. I pause to think about it. It _is _pretty ironic. A grave keeper who doesn't believe in ghosts.

I stop my musings to look at him... Then I notice the fact that he's glowing. Bloody _glowing. _I've only seen skin that pale on a corpse, too... Could he really be a _ghost?!_

As I think this, he starts sinking into the ground; first his knees and hands, then his feet and elbows. He notices and says 'oops' before jumping back up... and staying mid air.

'What the hell?!" I yelp as he starts circling me, smiling and laughing before flying off into the night air, come and gone just like that. I look at the grave we were standing at...

_-;-;-Daniel 'Danny' Fenton. -;-;-_

_-;-;-Our little Phantom.-;-;-_

------

-Laughter in the Sands (yes, this is the same story; just edited to fit the size limit)-

-angst-

-???'s POV-

Laughter. Their laughter. _Her _laughter. I hear it every day. I think back on all I have seen, all I have done, and always I hear her laughter. I hear their mocking of my mundane fate.

Even as the years pass by and all I knew is eroded away, my memory is pure, one of the few good things that came with this great power I was granted. Every thing that I have witnessed is as unfettered as the day I saw it, frozen. I've seen empires rise and fall, dreams accomplished and shattered, a silent observant of all time, a sentry to all history.

As the centuries pass and the land changes, I weep for the great maybe, all that could have been done. It was inevitable, I know, but still, I weep. Time is cruel that way, forcing you to watch as your beloved fall to the eternal sleep, yourself helpless to stop it.

I sit high above the remains of what I tried to protect, my world now sparse and dead. How long has it been since I aided someone, let their fate roll in my hands and decided whether they lived or perished at that moment? Not since that day, when the world ended and all that was left of this barren land was myself, my memories, and my desperate cries.

Nothing is left, everything fell away in the snap of a finger. All my hopes, dreams, all of it gone, along with the ones of so many others. I never got to see her grow into the beautiful woman she would be, never asked of the reasoning behind her attitude, her personality. I could have told her how I loved her. How I longed to hold her in my arms and kiss away her pain, her sadness. The first to leave, but far from the last, all gone...

At times, I still look back on that horrible day, when the every last being I cherished passed on to the next world. Alas, I'm stuck here, tied by fate's cruel tricks. I've tried, oh, how I have tried to join them, but it is for not, for I am cursed and blessed and with the one thing man so foolishly sot after for so many years, right up the time of their demise.

I gaze at the sun, reminding me so much of the one I once knew, before I realized the darkness of the world, the taint that consumed my every day since her annihilation-the annihilation of the world. It was her choice in the end, and sometimes I wonder why I rescued her all those years ago. I believed myself a guardian, when in truth, I was the cause of all this, by allowing her life to continue. If I had left her to perish, perhaps time would have turned differently. For all the wisdom I prided myself to own, I was blind to what her existence could mean for the future, or lack there of.

With a sorrowful breath, I engage the sensation I guarded the cause of ever so grandly all those millennium ago, my very plane of existence shifting into that beyond the end. I fly toward the horizon, a black and white blur among the shifting sands that were once my home, the ones I'll dwell in for the rest of eternity as the lonely Phantom I will forever be.

------

-On Silent Wings-

-general/-

-OC's POV (I've experimented with this OC a bit...)

Icy drops shred in to my wings like razors and I glide in the fog, spotting the tree now riddled with scars from my claws digging in. Said claws grasp onto the tree bark and I again taking up the careful juggling act of balancing my neck, tail and wings on an inch of hardened fiber. Not far now, I'm almost there. After three years, almost there...

I take a moment of rest, to regain energy and heat into my cold-blooded veins. Water vapor collects on my cold scales and falls to the forest floor in droplets, a soft plinking sound echoing in my ear. I blink back a drop nearing my cat like eyes, my vision clear as the purest crystal. My wings spread and catch the storming winds, embracing them and contorting them to my whim and fancy. All at once, I jump away and into the frigid air.

My wings pump to gain enough altitude to support my body, the thick clouds causing a fragile layer of permafrost to cover the scales of my underside. I flick in the air, a cloud of frozen water dancing off me in spirals. No reason to lose more heat then this blasted weather has already cost me- I've needed three meals in the past week, way too many.

A low cloud bank forces me to drop back into the tree line, branches already beginning to nip away at my thin wing membrane. Why does every blasted forest have to be full of evergreens with needles? Every time I dodge a branch the wind stream makes the accursed things fall out and cut right into the edges- I'm probably leaving a nice red trail.

The trees begin to lower in number, occasional meadows or streams visible from the lofty height I'm gliding from. I see a camping trailer or RV here and there, the residents still blissfully sleeping, completely unaware there's a wind creature of mass destruction flying right over there heads. Humans; such an arrogant species, expecting for nature to give them everything with nothing in return, and that their actions have no consequences...

I shake my head- I can ponder the moral qualms of others later, when I don't have a plan, a job to do, or a hatchling waking up hungry with it's mother a good half thousand miles away. Terran can handle it, he knows I won't be back until the new moon... Unless he forgets and instead goes with his clutch to go rat hunting again. If I see so much as one more scalp decorating the nest he'll be missing quite the sizable chunk of his tail soon.

All at once the trees stop, and a gray path stretches before me. A human path, where they travel in those noisy machines. A formless shape soon becomes apparent on the horizon.

The shape becomes clear- a road sign, blaring the message 'Welcome to Amity Park!' in nauseatingly bright yellow and orange colors. Amity Park, home of Danny Phantom...

Target Acquired.

------

-Beyond the Looking Glass-

-angst-

-Danny's POV-

It's been one year since the accident. Not the accident with the portal- that was months ago. It's been one year since I accidentally stole the CAT answers. One year since I was accidentally brought to that terrible future. One year since I met the monster I could've become. One year since I captured him in the thermos. One year since everybody I knew and love was supposed to be killed by my dark emotions all left to stew in one being.

Last night, I slept. Every night for the past year, I had dreams of being killed by him- or worse, _becoming _him. It scared me worse than anything than to watch myself try to murder. Try to bring what had happened to him onto another... Himself. He was willing to set me through that torture, if naught for the sake of watching me squirm and wail.

Could I become him? Certainly. Will I? I can't answer. Clockwork won't tell me anything, and I don't exactly have a crystal ball to consult in my room. So, I'll have to let fate play her sick little game and just be a puppet of her hands. They say you can control your own fate- but is it all part of some elaborate plan formulated from the very start?

That was the main subject of my pondering for the first month afterward. I checked my hands, to make sure they were pink, not green. My hair still unruly, not set aflame. My jumpsuit all black- not a cape to be seen. Jazz tells me it's something soldiers get- they're scared of becoming the heartless killer they were on the battle field. Terrified of looking in the mirror one day and seeing their old enemy... Or worse, themselves back in camo, proudly sporting a machine gun, cocked and ready to blow up any 'SOB' that came by.

The same thing's happening now. This morning, I swear I was a little greener when I checked the bruises from catching Skulker. The guy _still _won't give up on hanging my pelt off the wall... If only he knew the things I could do to him, he'd probably be running with his robotic tail between his legs. If he _had _a tail, that is. All part of playing the hero.

When I went to class, everybody was all excited... It seemed that, after over a year of checking, the results had come in. Sam and Tucker got average scores, Eighty-Four and Eighty-two respectively. Dash, as could only be expected, got a crude Sixty-One. He'll be retaking the test this Summer- when he won't have Football to 'distract him', as was his excuse for the horrific grade he had received. None of the other jocks did much better.

My score? I was a surprise in all this... Ninety-one. Want to know what's better? Lancer's convinced I cheated anyway, and is asking my parents to meet him at the Nasty Burger at five. I'm coming, too. This has a horrible sense of deja vu hanging around it like a fog.

As I look into the rear view mirror of the specter speeder, disgruntled parents murmuring among themselves, I swear, for one moment, my eyes glow red. Not Vlad's red, either...

-Watch Ghost (this has to be one of the weirdest filled things I've written. I blame Poe.)-

-angst/romance-

-Danny's POV-

It was a dark, ding day, the day of my death. I was fighting a new ghost fond of making things drop dead, only to resurrect them the minute we left the immediate area. Needless to say, the media was having an absolute field day over the 'zombies' among the streets.

All at once, he turned and aimed at the one person that made my blood run like ice- Sam. A cackle, a crackle, and a loud _thump. _Regardless of what had happened, the sight of her doubled over overpowered all other thought. I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't _think. _Seeing her there, white as snow and and unmoving, it was all just too much...

I didn't even notice when ghost to sent down the beam.- Except, it _did_ kill me- since I was already half dead, I just _died _instead. The moment I died, Sam came to; and saw my corpse on the ground. It hurt worse than I could ever describe to see her there, crying over my body... Then she did something to make it even worse- she started crying out that she had loved me since the start. That she was stupid for never telling me until it was too late.

Our hearts broke as one that night, and our dreams fell atop one another in a cursed domino effect of woe. From that day forth I've given myself a mission to carry out, a reason to stick around as a ghost- I need to protect Sam, my beloved Sam, my dear, dear Sam. I hurt her so badly that day, I can't let anybody do that again. Never, never again.

Alas, she can't see me anymore. Since I was half dead, I have half the energy of normal ghosts, so humans can't see me. Animals might be able to see me, they all run and flee in their burrows whenever I get near them. But Sam? No, she'll never know of my mission to protect her. It's better she doesn't, she needs a guardian of some sort. Guardian angel... Hah, what a term to put on the person who smashed her heart and soul like fragile china.

I've been following her for three years now. She's never been involved with anybody, she hardly talks with Tucker any more. Most of the time she thinks she's alone, when she never know I'm floating there, watching from above her head. She prides herself on needing nobody and nothing, when I've seen behind that tough layer to her heart of glass.

Perhaps it was meant to be this way, this a cruel twist of somebody with a sick sense of humor. I watching her, she missing me. Inches away from each other, and yet a life time away. I protect her from myself, her chiding herself for not protecting me. A state of endless limbo between the guilt of hurting eachother and the draw of longing one another.

I finally know what's it's like to the lonely parent who searches for days on end to find their lost child, only to discover a corpse is all that's left. For a corpse is all that is left of me, a corpse and a ghost watching over. The little angel on the shoulder of the crying parent, trying to tell them it's okay, when they'll never know they're so much closer than they think. That's the state we're in- as I watch her going through her days, as I do mine.


	8. Part 8

-Homeward Bound (companion piece to soldier boy (the first story in part 6))-

-romance/angst-

-Danny's POV-

It's been ten years since the war. Ten years since I've seen Sam... Ten years since I cradled my daughter in my arms. I let them believe I was gone, let them believe I was shot down by one of the enemy. By the ghosts led by _him. _Led by _Dan... _I lied to them...

I don't know why I did it any more. I hid behind the facade of doing it to protect them, shelter them from the torn madness that has become my life. After life. You see, I did die. I was shot down by one of Dan's. But I didn't leave. I became a ghost, a full ghost. That's how we won the war- because I was still there. But they never knew, they thought that they had gotten in a good shot and somehow managed to bring the sociopath down.

I'll let them believe in their abilities, let them give awards to the one who made the 'killing blow'. Let Valerie have her time in the sun- after the way fate toyed with her, she deserves some recognition. Nobody needs to know that the memorial is in honor of one who still walks the Earth. They can think what they want to think, who am I to say?

Still, I wish I could at least see Sam. It hurts every day to not see her, to stay the fly on the wall and the bug in the sheets. However, if it means protecting her, I'll do it. She means more to me than my happiness ever could, ever will. It's her happiness I care about, hers and Lilith's. Everything else is expendable and insignificant, at least to me.

Maybe I could see them again. Last time, oh it seems so long ago, it must have been six months. Lilith's twelfth birthday party, I think it was. They didn't know I was there, I was watching from inside the pinata the whole time. Kid has a damn hard swing, she does.

One little peek couldn't hurt, right? I fly off from my normal perch atop my parents' dilapidated old home, off toward the off white suburban house I called home for five years. The darkness of the night hides the black of my jumpsuit, the only trace of my presence a white blur racing among the sky like a shooting star. Most people think I am.

Finally the house comes into view, and there I see Sam at the window, watching our beloved little daughter sleep away. She's still so beautiful- her amethyst eyes, her pitch black hair, her milky white skin... Oh, she's so beautiful... She spares a glance to the sky, to the clouds to the right of me. I look, too, and see that the cloud has a strange similarity to the symbol on my chest. It even has the little bit missing at the bottom. Coincidence?

As I look back to the window, I see Sam staring right at me. Those eyes, oh, those eyes. I freeze at them, and all too familiar actions take place. I lift my hand to wave, to say hello, before my mind snaps back into what I'm doing. She can't know I'm still here, she can't. I mentally kick myself and fly off, but as I cast a look back, I can't help but smile at her.

_Don't make no difference what nobody says- ain't nobody like to be alone (Hungry Heart)_

-Footsteps in the Rain (this idea isn't mine, I just expanded on it...)-

-angst/action-

-Maddie's POV-

When I first saw Phantom, I didn't know what to think. Yes, he was a ghost- a ghost to the center of his little frozen heart. But he was more than a ghost- he was so much more. He was the first ghost I'd ever seen, the one that at last proved that I wasn't crazy.

The second time I saw Phantom, I began to notice things. How he lied to us, told us he meant no harm. How he avoided violence. But above all, how much he resembled my dear son, even the same childish voice. I saw it a trick, trying use my maternal instincts.

The third time I saw Phantom, things began to clarify. It was slow, but piece by piece, the pieces fit into place. He only showed up when there was another ghost, and then he 'protected' us from it. It didn't take long to see through his ruse- he was trying to get the public on his side, get the majority to support him and his ways. He'd betray them soon.

By the fourth, I had started to notice things about Danny... How he starting accumulating cuts, bruises, and scars. How he was late up at night, and missed school and important dates with no believable excuse at hand. I hoped he had seen through Phantom, and was trying to rid the town of the meddling ectoplasmic pest. If only it had all been that simple.

On the fifth meeting, the connections between him and Danny were even more prominent. He had the same frazzled mat of spiky hair, the same anxious, paranoid gleam to his eyes. Behind those radioactive peepers, I saw into what made the ghost tick. Fear, panic, anger, a while rainbow of emotions in the reflection of my gun into those eyes.

The Sixth time I saw Phantom, I began to wonder why he looked like my son. It was accumulative- one day Danny got a burn from acid in chemistry, and that night Phantom had the same scorch mark on his left ear. I came up with a theory, that Phantom was mirroring Danny, taking on his appearance and changing it into a ghostly version. I was disgusted by it- that he had made himself into an abomination of my dear baby boy.

After the Seventh meeting, I looked into Danny's room at night. He was asleep, but I could clearly see a burn in the same place where I had shot Phantom with the Fenton bazooka. This sent me for a whirl- If Phantom was copying Danny, why did Danny have Phantom's injury? Then it came to me- he was using Danny as a sponge for his pain.

On the Eighth meeting, things happened I could never describe. But it became clear just what Phantom had done- he had possessed Danny. It explained everything. The spook hid in his body, and when the time came for him to play hero, he took control and showed his true colors. It was a painful idea, one that made me question everything about myself.

But now I've freed him. Phantom may have taken over his life, and made it hell. As I look at the blood staining my hands, I can't help but feel pride in that I ended it. Saved him.

------

-The Sleepover (based on my dreams when I sleep with a sugar high)-

-humor/romance (TxOC, DxS)-

-Danny's POV-

I don't know quite how Tucker convinced me to spy on Sam and Mable during our 'double date' sleepover. Something about too many Hersheys bars before bed, probably.

All the same, we got into Sam's room to see the two of them huddled up in sleeping bags. Sam's was purple with a black spider web design, while Mable's had Foamy the squirrel.

I was tempted, oh so temped to just watch Sam sleep all night, the way her hair blew with every little breath, how that one bang hung over her eye... But Tucker forcibly reminded me that there was a stranger to our group present. Thus, we went to inspect Mable.

Now, I have no issue with the girl- sure she's a little creepy, and made me wet my pants the first time we met, and chews on her own arm... Alright, yes, I have issues with her. But still, after we got to know her, and she let us in, she's not too bad a person at all.

Still, knowing her for my entire life would'nt have prepared me for what we found. No, she didn't sleep with a hair net or anything. Frankly, she has hair like Tim Burton mixed with Weird Al... No, that's not the surprise. Nor were the midnight blue pajamas. No, the shocker was that she talked in her sleep; she said things I will never wipe from my mind.

"Yes, my furry minions... Attack him! Chew off his bloody little legs! Yes fear the power of my army of rabid brainwashed hamsters! That's right Zoreta, don't let him get away!"

To put it lightly, I was shocked at what she said. She was commanding attacks on George W. Bush, Osama, some kid named Dib-butt, DragonBall Z characters, and twinkies.

It scared me on more levels then should be legal. Tucker was scared, too- his eyes must've been the size of golf balls. I guess he wasn't expected his girlfriend to rant about destroying things in her sleep. I know I'll never see that bitingly sarcastic girl the same.

I doubt that the yelps of 'use his head for a cheese garter!' ever fully left my mind when Tucker and I slipped back into our sleeping bags to attempt to return to a restful state.

Still, when Tucker woke us all up that morning with a call of "Don't let the hamsters at me!" It took a while to convince Mable that we hadn't spied. We somehow convinced her that Tucker had a phobia of small creatures attacking him in sleep... Although Sam some how knew that I'd been watching her the night before. Maybe she wasn't asleep at all.

All the same, I think I've had my share of watching those two girl sleep. Of course, it would be several years before they revealed that it was just a recording that Mable hid in her bag. They thought we might spy on them and planned it all. Tucker still doesn't know.

------

-Mondays (I officially hate that one page per drabble thing. It is no longer enforced)-

-angst-

-Danny's POV-

Don't you just hate days like this? I mean, days where everything goes wrong? We've all had them. We all hate them. But there's no way in hell yours have anything on mine. So you think you can compare? Let's recap, shall we? Let's start with the best of the worst.

Try having your parent find out your biggest secret and then murder you the same hour.

Or telling your friend you love her, only for her to get cooked alive by gas leak that night.

Still not convinced? Try your girlfriend committing suicide because she can't accept you.

Or maybe having your sister being kidnapped and murdered by your enemy to get to you?

Your father being blasted to smithereens for something he could never hope to control?

Your mother shooting you through the head without shedding a tear, even after a decade?

Your best friend betraying you because he secretly loved that stubborn suicidal girl too?

Losing your life because one you trusted told you it would help in the grand scheme?

The one you have left dying because of of your stubbornness at not aiding your enemy?

Being forced to murder everyone you knew so history could restart itself and try again?

Watching your enemy live on to annihilate everything you tried to protect and rescue?

Hearing that he desecrated the grave of you, your lover, and your friend by burning them?

Knowing that, as your body'll never be put to rest, you can never move on out of limbo?

Watching as the last flicker of life is snuffed out by him, with no consequence of his?

Fruitlessly trying to convince one who can stop it to do so, only because it broke rules?

Hearing the scathing words of your enemy without any means of talking back at him?

Being tortured by your own inner demons both inside and the outside day after day?

Yeah, my bad days suck. The worst of all? They all happen, or at least start, on Mondays... and It's past midnight on Sunday now. Guess you know what that means...

------

-The Perfect Storm (companion piece to 'what is good?')-

-angst/action-

-Danny_'s _POV_-_

Water mingled with the blood dripping down my arms in a scarlet curtain of tears and pain. Slashes and scars crisscrossed across my arms in elaborate patterns bred like vermin in the mind of the sick mind who had committed the deed. The mind possessing the man standing above me, smirking through fangs at the puddles surrounding us in a crescent.

My breath came in infrequent, forced gasps. Each squeeze of my liquid-filling lungs was a pained, attempt to maintain the slowing sound pounding through my eyes and ears. My chest heaved with each movement of my vital organs as the strained muscle flexed the diminishing life force flowing out my veins. The veins sliced open by the man above me.

Darkness, a deep, warm black was already creeping around the edges of my vision, tinting the black and white figure spitting at my feet a like pinkish color. So, he went through with it. Can't he understand that its for the best? The man was a menace, he would have killed us all... He just cant accept the lesser of two evils, can he? I guess it's genetic, his mother was the same. Trying to make out lives as perfect as they could be, when it all fell around her ears. Mansons tend to be like that- they want the best.

Doesn't her understand that that man murdered his mother, his aunt, his grandparents? Doesn't he see that he was a danger to everybody he loves, that he needed to be done away with? I guess he doesn't believe in eye for an eye, judging by the look of horror on his face when I did to that monster what he did to my dear wife. Arm, leg, leg, arm...

Why is it that he can do to I as I did to our enemy, and yet finds no fault in what he does? So he hasn't ripped my limbs off, or burned my body over the flames of my loved possessions, or fed my mutilated corpse to starved hounds. He's still done... bad stuff.

Well, he is definitely a chip off the old block, anyway That I can tell from the way he's boiling me alive with the puddle of my own blood I'm bathing it right now. Well, at least I know that I won't be the only one losing their humanity today. Oh wait, I lost mine already- my mistake. He always did have more of a conscious than I did. It won't be long before he joins me in hell. Maybe we'll finally double team Vlad at go fish... Oh wait, two of us are missing our hands now. Well, dash it all, like they have cards in hell anyway.

I guess I'll find out pretty soon, judging by the way the darkness is creeping in.. _and_ the fact that my heart just got ripped out by an ecto-dagger. Ah yes, like father, like son...


	9. UPDATE ON STYLE Agony

I'm changing this one a lot. True be told, I was literally forcing myself to do what I did before. Now drabbles will come one update a piece, more frequently (as I'm sure you will LOVE), and with out a limit on size. I am also scrapping the title- genre-POV- thing at the start, it just subtracts from the atmosphere of the story. Now I will only show the title. Thank you.

-Agony-

It had been all too long since he had seen her bright smiling face. It had seemed like an eternity since her purple eyes grazed his gaze, her angelic voice floated past his ears, her ivory pale skin wrapped around his shoulders. He awaited in silent agony, every thought within his mind of her teasing flirts...

_'Danny Fenton, are you sleeping again?!'_

He jerked up at the declaration, every pair of sixty sum eyes watching him with barely contained mirth. He moaned into his hand as the detention slip was thrust onto his desk, joining the others lining his jacket pocket.

At last the bell rang, and he could leave the room. As he walked by came that oh-so delicious voice proclaiming,

"Am I the _only one_ who thought algebra took forever today?"

He just grinned and shook his head as they met at the T section separating them once more. He turned left; she right.

and so the torture began once more.


	10. What kind of Idiot

-What kind of Idiot-

"What kind of idiot sends a valentine to their crush? Why don't they just got off their butt and fess up to it?"

Sam was, once again, openly protesting the concept of Valentines day. The frilly pink and white was enough to turn her off the holiday forever, so it wasn't like it was a surprise of any kind. Really, who would expect _Sam Manson_ to have any kind of fondness for a day based around cutesy pieces of paper covered in lace saying things like, "You're my only", "I'll love you forever", and "May true love find its way to your life?"

Still, I couldn't help but slouch a little as I stuffed the black and red heart back into my pocket.

Maybe next year.


	11. An Idiot of What Kind

-An Idiot of What Kind-

"What kind of idiot sends a valentine to their crush? Why don't they just got off their butt and fess up to it?"

It was just so _stupid_. If you want them to like you, then why not just say? Better than waiting for them to make a first move they may never make. You'll feel better having a definite answer then worrying night and day over it, right?

At least, that'd what I thought until I saw something dark fall out the hole in Danny's pocket. I picked it up and turned to give it back, but he'd already gone. I looked at it again- it _looked_ like a Halloween card. Strange he'd have one around mid February.

Looking for a good laugh at a funny card, I looked it over.

_Though I am half dead,_

_and you are fully alive,_

_I think I do love._

_Started off as friends,_

_Thought it always that way_

_Now I'm not so sure._

_Tell me if its true_

_That you can feel this bond too._

_Just tell me, Sammy._

and just like that, Valentines Day became my favorite holiday.


	12. If Things Had Been Different

-If Things had been Different-

If things had been different, I wouldn't be standing here on her grave. I wouldn't be jabbing half a dozen lilies under the stone bearing her name in those runes. I wouldn't be watering the plush grass with my tears.

If Things had been different, I wouldn't be kneeling down to clear the stone of dust and dirt kicked up by the wind. I wouldn't be tracing every intricate letter with a hazmat covered glove. I wouldn't be crying over the shared plot of blessed land.

If things had been different, I wouldn't be feeling that familiar freeze of air on my hands. I wouldn't be grasping those cold, dead fingers in mine. I wouldn't be looking into those once lavender eyes, tears magnifying the beautiful golden hue they now held.

If things had been different, we wouldn't both be dead.


	13. Indecision

-Indecision-

"_Though art a witch!"_

"Nay and nigh, I am but a simple farm boy!"

They don't listen. They never listen. Anybody caught going around the woods at night, and they're called a witch. I never meant harm, why would I mean harm? All of my friends and family are here, why would I hurt them? They don't understand...

"Liar!"

"Burn the witch!"

I shan't bare truth in repent to the words they doth speak. What hateful terms pass by their lips like greased lightning set upon us by our lord. Have they not known me all my life? Have not they seen what I 'have done in their name? No, nay, they forget. Dare not do I tell why I was in the forest, or we both shalt be burned. I gaze upon thy reason my heart doth swell, my beautiful angel. There she sits, eyes filled of tears, watching her parents sentence upon myself death.

Oh, my angel, never could I let them harm. Nay, I shan't. Better my life then hers...

Not another word doth pass my lips. I am dragged toward the smoldered woods, the flames of hell darkening them. I doth not cry as the crimson my body does fall to. Nay. All I do is watch my beautiful angel cry away, rubbing thou stomach in remembrance of the gift placed there by I not long before. For there doth lie my end.

"_Indecision, Indecision. Like the Spanish Inquisition"- Hammy ham ham_


	14. How the Mighty Fall

-How the Mighty Fall-

It had happened so fast that he could've never hoped to see it as it happened. The crash, the blur, the scream, the blood...

One moment he was mouthing off Dash Baxter, and the next, the tall boy was out cold on the floor, blood spilling from the back of his neck in a steady stream, dying his hair a sickening rust.

All at once the boisterous chatter of teenagers stopped and the once deafening hallway became became silent as a tomb. Like one being, every pair of eyes turned toward the still form of the blond boy slumped on the tiles.

Nearby lay a single, solitary cube, the stark gray of the ventilation pipe a blinding contrast to the paleness of the students' faces. Somewhere in the back ground echoed the sound of pounding footsteps.

Like the red sea the students parted as Edward Lancer walked forward. His eyes shifted round the room to every face, every locker, every backpack. His pupils shrank as something soaked into his shoes, something _sticky_.

His eyes joined the dozens watching the quarterback as he lay there. One question split the silence.

"What happened?"

All at once, like the flip of a switch, the world was no longer mute. Whispers filled the hall as all turned to the one standing above the bleeding boy- Danny Fenton.

The words caught in his mouth, his throat swelling shut as his system went into shock. He tried to get his mouth to open, to do something, but it remained firmly clenched. With a deft motion he pointed to the steel pipe laying on the ground, one corner a dingy red.

The man's teeth clenched as it became clear what happened. "Somebody call 911!" he yelled as he fell to his knees over the boy, just standing there. He couldn't do anything he didn't know medical care. But somehow, somehow, just standing there would help... somehow.

The two stood there as murmurs peppered their ears. Now and then a sniffle from Paulina would mix in with the static of the hall.

Soon sirens began to join in. Men in white suits stormed through the door, carrying a white stretcher. They didn't ask a word, didn't pause to grieve what would without a doubt become a paralyzing injury. They just did as they were told, their emotions blocked by years of death and bloodshed.

That was the last time that any student of Casper High ever saw the jock. He didn't die- but was crippled from the neck down. Can never to speak again, as the block of metal had damaged his language center. All he could do was moan or groan when he felt pain. Bed ridden for life, with no hope for a future.

As the days turned into weeks and then into months, all that Danny Fenton could think of was what would have happened if he had been one foot the left. Then he would be the one never again seeing the light of day in its full untethered beauty. He would be the one watching as life went by, without him along for the ride.


	15. You'd think, You'd Hope

-You'd think, you'd hope-

You'd think, you'd hope, that he would have more consideration. More thought. More compassion. But you'd think wrong, whenever you think of my dad. He didn't know of compassion, of peace, of love. He didn't know of love when I was conceived, either. Just another woman to terrorize however he could think of. He didn't even know I existed until he found me poking out of the arms of the dead woman holding me ever so close.

You'd think, you'd hope, that he would leave me to my ways, or atleast kill me. But you'd think wrong. I was hidden away and taught of his horrible ways of destruction. He taught me of war and of massacre, of genocide and of death. He carefully sculpted me into a warrior, an executioner, a bringer of misery, sorrow and grief. He was not much gentler with I than with his victims. He called us fallen angels. I think of him as a risen devil.

You'd think, you'd hope, that he would have let me hide when he broke through the barrier. But you'd think wrong. He pulled me out of the rubble and threw me among the runes, expecting to see my work. I tried to fool him, by harvesting his victims from freshly plotted ground and telling him that I'd been the killer. It worked for a while, until he noticed that he'd seen those terror stricken eyes before. I nearly died that day. Nearly.

You'd think, you'd hope, that he would have told me when he was attacking his 'younger self'. But you'd think wrong. Despite all he had done, the feral instincts of a spirit compel me to trust my father, no matter how he hurt me. It burned these raw, primitive emotions of mine to see that he did not trust me enough to tell me he was going after what could be called my half-uncle. Not that I knew him, but it still shocked me that could kill family.

You'd think, you'd hope, that when he was gone, I would be a free spirit. But you'd think wrong. I could wash away the years of lessons, loose from just as many years of skepticism toward what they symbolize. After all, my mother had been a kind, sweet natured woman, and I was lucky enough to have inherited that just as much as father's madness. I was ready to start fresh, crawl out of my father's shadow. The people weren't.

You'd think, you'd hope, that the remaining humans would have at least tolerated me. But you'd think wrong. Before I could even try to exonerate myself, they found me, caged me, and put me on display. Everybody wanted to see the son of the beast in all his wicked glory. Chains to block my abilities, and bars stronger than I could ever hope to be. To them I was a side show, something to be mocked and laughed at in my father' place.

You'd think, you'd hope, that after the city was rebuilt, they would not condone me. But you'd think wrong. I was just as much of a tourist attraction as I had ever been, even centuries after. People come to see the spawn of the being that had destroyed their carefully made world. Even after the last survivor of that dark age had perished, I was locked away in this blasted cage, though I couldn't repeat my father's plot. After all, how could I get out? Hundreds of years couldn't affect the bars... You'd think, you'd hope.


End file.
